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She rewrote it, time after time, trying to better it. 



331 



The Heart of a Girl 


By 

RUTH KIMBALL GARDINER 

Illustrated by 

CHARLES LOUIS HINTON 



New York 

A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 
1905 



Copyright, 1905, by 
A. S. BARNES & CO. 


•v.lBRARY of OONSRESSf 
iwu Copies rteceim) 

.ADG 29 1906 
)opyriient uitry 
/ A , i 9 ^ 5 " 
<x xxc. «o» 

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<X)PY a. 


Published September y 1905 


To 

My Father 


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CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE 

I. “S'POSV” I 

II. The Free-Thinker 13 

III. Partners in Crime 26 

IV. The Last of Fred Douglas 4^ 

V. Citizen of the School World 53 

VI. Men Were Deceivers Ever 66 

VII. When the Worm Turned 79 

VIII. The Weakness of Gold 89 

IX. Julia 102 

X. A Romance 114 

XI. A Broken Bond 127^ 

XII. An Ideal and a Reality 143 

XIII. In Safe Places 156 

XIV. A Name on a Fan 169 

XV. Glenda 190 

XVI. A Point of Order 203 

^tVII. The Martyrdom of Charles 1 219 

XVIII. A Way Out 232 

XIX. The Pot and the Kettle 247 

XX. The Day of the Pot 271 

XXI. Prince Fortunatus 290 

XXII. The Real Marcia 3°^ 

XXIII. A Splendid World 3^1 

XXIV. Princess Fortunata 335 

XXV. Against Odds 35 * 

XXVI. Palma Non Sine Pulvere 3^7 




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ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

She Rewrote It, Time after Time, Trying to Bet- 
ter It Frontispiece. 

Margie Stopped Swinging Her Feet. She Was 

Left Alone in a Childless World 8 

‘T Am Still Studying It,” She Said 85 

Toward Her New Friend Her Attitude Was Al- 
together That of Devotee 103/ 










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HEART OF A GIRL 












CHAPTER I. 


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“s'pos^n’.” 

Margaret Carlin's school days really be- 
gan a year before she was sent to school. She 
was nearly six years old when she was enrolled 
in the First Reader class, but at five she felt 
herself already a school girl. 

The Gordonsville school began, or, as they 
said in Gordonsville, “took up,” on the first 
Monday in September. On that first Monday 
of September, when she was nearly five, she went 
out, as usual, after breakfast to sit on the gate 
post. On most mornings her stay on the tall 
post was not long. George Budd, who lived 
across the street, always came out as soon as he 
saw her, and then there was the long day before 
them to play in. This morning, however, 
George did not come. Margie swung her feet 
and waited. She swung them in a new way, the 
way the new little girl she had seen in Sunday- 
school the day before swung hers, round and 
round in a sort of a circle. It seemed to Margie 
a very elegant accomplishment. 

1 


2 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Presently her sister Betty, five years her 
senior, came down the walk and out the gate. 
She carried books under her arm, and a lunch 
box, and Margie knew she was going to school. 
Margie had been there once with her, and had 
drawn pictures on her slate. School, she remem- 
bered, was not a very pleasant place, though it 
had made her feel important to go as a visitor 
with Betty. She admired Betty very much, and 
had practised on Georgie Budd something she 
had seen her do at school. Betty had walked up 
to the bench in the yard where the water-buckets 
stood, and had thrown a dipperful of water high 
in the air, saying : 

“What goes up must come down, 

On your head or on the ground.” 

The girls laughed and ran screaming when 
Betty did it, but Georgie didn’t know about it 
and the water had spoiled his new shirtwaist. 
He had been so cross about it that he wouldn’t 
play “S’pos’n’ ” all day. “S’pos’n’ ” was such 
fun. You could say: “S’pos’n’ I had a doll that 
was alive,” or “S’pos’n’ we could catch a fairy,” 
or “S’pos’n’ Christmas came every Sunday,” or 
any other beautiful thing you could think of. 
Georgie liked to play “S’pos’n’ ” about things 
that made you scary — things like the world com- 
ing to an end, or the plagues of Egypt, or the 


3 


“STOS’N’ ’’ 

bears that ate the children in the Bible. Georgie 
was never scared by the things he thought up. 
He always knew just what he would do if the 
bears tried to eat him. He would run home and 
get his father’s gun and shoot them. He could 
outrun any bear that ever was, he felt sure, but 
when Margie, safe in the tall willow tree, dared 
him to say, “Go up. Bald-head,” to old Dr. Fel- 
ton, Georgie didn’t do it. He wasn’t afraid of 
bears, but he didn’t think it would be polite to 
sass an old gentleman. Margie thought of 
dozens of lovely things to suppose, and won- 
dered why Georgie didn’t come out. 

The Taylor children from next door came 
down the street, and they had books, too. Luella 
paused as she passed the gate to show her new 
dress. 

“It’s got a sham skirt,” she announced. 
“Maw says they’re all the rage now.” 

Margie did not answer. It seemed to her 
that all the children in that end of town were 
going to school. She began to feel very much 
left out, but she swung her feet in the new way, 
and waited for George. 

At last he came. Flis mother was with him, 
and she stopped at the door to lock it and tuck 
the key under the mat. George came on down 
to the gate. He had on a new suit and copper- 
toed boots with red tops, and he carried a lunch 
pail. 


4 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Came on over,” shouted Margie. 

“I can’t,” Georgie answered, importantly. 
“I’m going to school.” 

Margie stopped swinging her feet. She was 
left alone in a childless world. 

After a long while she scrambled down and 
went around to the kitchen. Old black Jule 
might tell her some more about the h’ants. 
Black Jule was washing, and couldn’t be both- 
ered. Margie wandered down into the orchard 
to the place where she and Georgie had made 
the graveyard. It had begun with the burial of 
one chicken, and the tiny mound looked so well 
that they had made other graves, burying corn- 
cob dolls and twigs. Each grave had a “lucky 
rock” on it, and they had scoured the branch 
clear out as far as the fence to Ballam’s pasture 
to find those smooth, round, white pebbles. 
Margie was too lonely to find pleasure even in 
the graveyard. Clearly, the only thing left for 
her was Belinda Betts, her doll. 

She went back to the house and into the sit- 
ting-room. Mrs. Carlin was sitting by the win- 
dow sewing and singing. There was a pane of 
blue glass in the window, and some people 
thought that light coming through blue glass was 
good for the health. Mrs. Carlin did not think 
so herself, but Cousin Cyrus did, and had put 
the blue glass there himself. Margie thought 
it did Belinda Betts a great deal of good. Be- 


“S’POS’N* 


5 

linda Betts was ill very often. Twice she had 
died and been buried, once in the ash-hopper at 
George’s house, and once down in the orchard, 
but her grave down there was too large to look 
well, George thought, and Margie was glad to 
dig her up. Margie loved her devotedly. She 
was not like the beautiful wax dolls that came 
at Christmas and made you get up every morning 
with your heart in your mouth for fear the wax 
had cracked. The wax always did crack sooner 
or later, even if you were careful to leave the 
doll near the stove at night, and even before it 
cracked, the doll’s face was dirty. You could 
wash it with melted butter, but it never looked 
the same. 

Belinda Betts was so satisfactory. She was 
neither wax nor china. She was a piece of 
blanket rolled up and sewed tight. She had 
shoe buttons for eyes, and white thread sewed 
over and over in a lump for a nose, and a long, 
red stitch for a mouth. Burying didn’t hurt her, 
and you could have her fall out of the willow tree 
— it was really a balloon, when you said 
“s’pos’n’ ” and the ground below was an ocean 
— without hurting her at all. She had been 
scalped by Indians and carried off by giants ever 
so many times. 

Margie took her out of the cupboard under 
the book-case, and laid her in the blue light. 

“I think she’s going to die,” she said. 


6 


HEART OF AGIRE 


“Why not give her some medicine?” Margie’s 
mother said. 

“There isn’t anybody to play doctor,” Margie 
objected. 

Mrs. Carlin looked up. 

“Has Georgie gone to school?” she asked. 

“Yes,” said Margie. “Everybody’s gone. 
They’ve all got books and they’re gone.” 

“Well, you’ll be going next year,” said her 
mother. 

Grown people had such strange ways of talk- 
ing. They talked about next year as if it were 
this afternoon. 

“I want to go now,” Margie said. 

“Then we’ll play you’re going,” said her 
mother. “It will be nicer than real going be- 
cause you can come back when you want to. 
Georgie can’t come home till four o’clock.” 

“He took his lunch,” said Margie, reluctant 
to content herself with mere play. 

“So shall you,” said her mother, “and you’ll 
feel exactly like Georgie.” 

Margie’s pleasure in the make-believe in- 
creased as its reality grew. There was her new 
gingham dress to put on, and her new shoes. 
They hadn’t copper toes, but except for that 
they seemed to her almost as fine as Georgie’s 
boots, and they laced up on the inside. Her 
mother took down the red and black shawl and 
the Sunday hat with the gilt bee on it. Margie 


“S’POS’N’ ’’ 


7 


began to feel as dressed up as Luella Taylor. 
She selected her primer from the book shelves, 
and when her mother brought her a tin pail with 
lunch in it, she was ready to start. The pail was 
larger than the one Georgie carried, and the 
two apples in it rattled about noisily, but it 
looked very real. Margie took it in one hand, 
and, tucking the primer under her arrn, as Betty 
carried her books, set out. She walked past the 
kitchen. 

‘‘Where you goin’?” old Jule called. 

“I’m going to school,” said Margie, proudly. 

Old Jule chuckled as she bent above the wash- 
tub again. Her laughter was never offensive, 
as the laughter of other grown people sometimes 
was. It never meant that one had used the 
wrong word or that one had showed fear of any- 
thing. It was always a laugh of approval. 

Margie walked up and down the orchard, 
then back, past the hen house, and down to the 
barn. She was holding her book and her lunch 
pail in the right way, and it made her feel as 
important as Georgie. Black Sam was dozing 
on a box at the stable door. 

“Whar you goin’ ?” he asked. 

“I’m going to school,” Margie answered, 
marching up and down before him. 

“You certainly ain’t gittin’ there fast,” said 
Sam. 

His tone seemed to imply that he was not im- 




8 


HEART OF A GIRL 


pressed. Margie walked away, and down 
through the orchard again, to the branch and 
the willow tree. It was a very large willow, or 
perhaps it may have been four willows planted 
together, for one had only to take a high step, 
and there one was between great trunks, two on 
each side. The tree broke the line of the fence 
which separated the Carlin place from the gar- 
den of the German family next door. The fam- 
ily was named Wagenhals, and there were 
Freda and Karl, who were nearly grown, and 
Gretchen, who was older than Betty Carlin, and 
Grandma and Grandpa Wagenhals, and Gross- 
mutter, who was Grandma’s mother. Grandpa 
Wagenhals was a carpenter, and in his shop near 
the house Margie always found delightful, odd- 
shaped blocks, and long shavings as yellow and 
evenly curled as the locks of the Princess in the 
fairy story. 

Margie scrambled through the gate the wil- 
low made, and walked over to the shop. The 
door was locked, and she turned toward the 
house. There sat Grossmutter by the window 
sewing carpet rags. Grossmutter did not speak 
English, but she smiled in answer to most ques- 
tions and shook her head in answer to others, so 
that Margie had no difficulty in talking to her. 

Grossmutter looked up inquiringly as Margie 
entered the bright, clean kitchen. 

“I’m going to school this morgen,” she said. 



Margie stopped swinging her feet. She was left alone in a 
childless world. 







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“STOS’N’ ” 9 

“Morgen” was a word she and Grossmutt^r both 
knew. 

“So?” said Grossmutter. 

“Ja,” said Margie. 

“Ach, Herr Je !” said Grossmutter. 

Grandma Wagenhals came in from the front 
room. 

“To school already!” she said, admiringly. 
“And a book!” 

“It’s a primer,” Margie explained, “but I 
can read it.” 

She opened it at a page where there were 
pictures with words printed under them. 

“C-a-t, cat,” she spelled, proudly. “D-o-g, 
dog; r-a-t, mouse.” 

“Wonderschon !” said Grandma. “And 
this?” She pointed at words on a page where 
there were no pictures. 

“I haven’t got that far yet,” Margie ex- 
plained. 

“And writing?” asked Grandma, 

Now, Margie was not sure about writing. 
She had watched her mother write many times, 
and with a pencil and paper she could make 
marks that looked to her very like what her 
mother put down. There were wriggly lines and 
tall ones, with crosses on them, and here and 
there a dot. Her mother could read what Mar- 
gie wrote just as soon as Margie told her what 
it was, but of late the little girl had begun to 


10 


HEART OF A GIRL 


have the feeling that perhaps it was only one of 
her mother’s make-believes. She fancied, too, 
that all grown people made believe about writ- 
ing, and that nobody could really read the cu- 
rious marks other people made. Reading in the 
primer was a very different thing. One had the 
picture then to tell what the word was. She 
knew that grown people did make believe. 
Georgie Budd’s father always made believe to 
be afraid Belinda Betts would bite, when Be- 
linda Betts was only a blanket doll. She won- 
dered if Grandma could read her writing. 

“I can write a little if I have a slate,” she said. 

Grandma brought Karl’s slate. She was al- 
ways jumping up to do things for people who 
came to see her, not at all like Grandmother, 
who was father’s mother, and sat in a chair all 
day long. Grandmother was one thing, and 
Grandma, who was no kin at all, was another. 
One had to wait on Grandmother and hear her 
recite, 

‘‘But children, you should never let 
Such angry passions rise,” 

when one was cross. 

Margie had been to visit Grandmother, who 
lived where the cars went to, the summer before, 
and she was not so fond of her as she was of 
Grandma Wagenhals. She wouldnever have tried 
to find out about writing from Grandmother. 


“S’POS’N’ ’’ 


ii: 


She took Karl’s slate. 

“What do you want me to write?” she asked. 

Grandma thought for a moment. 

“Write ‘I want some coffee<ake,’ ” she said. 

Margie scrawled a line across the slate, put 
on a cross or a dot here and there, and held it 
up. 

“Ach, liebes Kindi” said Grandma. “So you 
shall have the cake for those beautiful writings.” 

It was a wonderful cake, and one always had 
it at Grandma’s. It was raised like bread, but 
sweet, with brown sugar on its shiny crust. 
Margie munched her piece in great content. 
Grandma took the tin bucket and laid some of 
the cake in that. 

“That is for mother,” she said. “You will 
carry it, not?” 

Margie ran home through the willow and up 
through the orchard and into the sitting-room. 
Mother was delighted with the coffee-cake. One 
couldn’t carry anything home to mother without 
being glad, for mother was always so pleased. 

“I had some, too,” Margie said. 

“I hope you didn’t ask for it,” Mrs. Carlin 
said. 

“I didn’t have to,” Margie explained. 
“Grandma told me to write, ‘I want some coffee- 
cake,’ on Karl’s slate, and when I did it she gave 
me some. I didn’t even hint. Grandma read 
my writing as easy as you do.” 


12 


HEART OF A GIRL 


She climbed into her mother’s lap and settled 
down for a “talk-a-bye.” 

“Sing ‘Into a Ward,’ ” she begged. 

Mrs. Carlin rocked her in her arms and sang. 
Margie was thinking. 

“Mother,” she said presently, “honest Injun, 
can anybody read writing without knowing be- 
forehand what you write?” 

“Some people can,” Mrs. Carlin admitted. 
“It depends on who does the writing.” 

“Could anybody read mine?” 

“I’m afraid not, honey,” Mrs. Carlin an- 
swered. 

“Well,” said Margie, thoughtfully, “I’m 
glad. I’m going to write that Luella Taylor is 
a stuck-up, and then I’ll tell her it means she’s 
nice.” 

“Do you think that would be right?” Mrs. 
Carlin asked. 

Margie considered. 

“Not Sunday right,” she said, “but just kind 
of other day right. And, anyway, she won’t 
know what I really did write about her. And 
won’t you sing ‘Billy Boy’ ? I reckon I’m glad 
I didn’t go to the really school.” 


CHAPTER 11. 


THE FREE-THINKER. 

The next September brought the real school 
days. In the interval Margie had learned to 
read a little more and to write. She was, there- 
fore, made a member of the First Reader class 
at once. She was glad to escape going into the 
Chart class. Chart was a new word to her, and 
in hearing it she missed the final t. Char’ class 
had an unpleasant sound. It was associated in 
her mind with charcoal, a thing known to be 
grimy, and it seemed to her a term of reproach. 
Children in the Char’ class were unclean, like 
persons in the Bible. Miss Cherry’s manner 
made this quite evident. 

Miss Cherry was the teacher, and was con- 
sidered very strict. For even boys and girls 
who could read and spell, she had no words of 
approval, and she had a system of marking the 
deportment records that made it almost impos- 
sible for any one to end the week with a “per- 
fect.” In Miss Cherry’s room you stood up to 
read and to spell. There was a chalk line drawn 
on the floor, and as long as the lesson lasted you 
13 


14 


HEART OF A GIRL 


must stand with your heels together, and turned- 
out toes just touching this. If your toes crossed 
the line, any one who saw them and told Miss 
Cherry could go above you. There was a de- 
merit mark for you if you used both hands to 
hold your book when you read. There was an- 
other if you unfolded your arms in spelling class. 
Dropping a slate or pencil counted against you, 
and as for whispering, that was a sin so deadly 
that you had to stand on the floor. It was only 
a little less wicked than being tardy. 

Altogether, going to school was not so pleas- 
ant as Margie had pictured it, but knowing Lena 
Bean made up for a great deal. Lena Bean was 
her seatmate. Back of each ear Lena wore a 
short braid of hair, with red yarn plaited into it 
and tied at the ends. The braids stuck up 
smartly when Lena bent over her slate, and 
Margie, whose own hair was curly, admired 
them immensely. Lena was in the good graces 
of Miss Cherry, because she was quick about 
arithmetic. Arithmetic and discipline were Miss 
Cherry’s graven images. To find favor in her 
eyes, one must be able to do sums and to sit per- 
fectly still. When the children were restless, it 
was Miss Cherry’s custom to call them to atten- 
tion, and to oblige them to sit perfectly motion- 
less till she dropped a pin. Margie’s first ex- 
perience with the pin was not a happy one. She 
felt twitchy the instant that she was told to sit 


THE FREE-THINKER 


15: 

perfectly still, but, anxious to please, she stif- 
fened her muscles and held her breath, exploding 
in a loud gasp just in time to drown the tinkle 
of the pin. Good intentions did not prevent her 
from having a demerit marked against her. 

As for arithmetic, she was blackmarked in 
that from the first. She could count. She could 
even say the multiplication table as far as sixes 
if she were allowed to count very fast, without 
interruption, but she could not do the simplest 
sum in mental arithmetic, or, at least, she could 
not do it as Miss Cherry required it done. She 
could add only after she had translated each 
number into concrete fingers, and Miss Cherry 
forbade that. 

“Think, Margaret,” she would cry, sternly. 
“Use your brain, not your fingers. Think.” 

Margaret gave herself up despairingly as one 
unable to think. She had not the remotest idea 
how to go about using a brain. Lena was won- 
derful to her. Lena knew all the Roman numer- 
als, too, and Margie was never certain of any- 
thing between three Fs three and ix nine. She 
knew nine, because ix was the tail of six, and 
nine was six upside down. Lena required no 
such association of ideas to tell her what any- 
thing was. Lena could add three figures in the 
twinkling of an eye. To Margie’s repeated plea 
to be told how she did it, she returned an inva- 
riable and discouraging answer: 


i6 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“I just think ’em quick.” 

Lena was wonderful in many another way. 
She was a storehouse of school tradition and 
child superstition. She delighted in horrors, 
and all she knew she imparted with authority to 
Margie. She showed the dark cellar under the 
high stoop of the school-house, and gave it its 
school name, “The Dungeon.” Once, Lena 
said, a boy who talked back to the principal had 
been put there, and left till he starved to death. 
Lena maintained that the principal’s power was 
absolute. Even Miss Cherry was free to do ter- 
rible things if she chose. There was a little girl 
who had been made to stand on the floor, close 
to the stove, for whispering, till the side of her 
face was one solid blister. 

Lena admitted that these things had happened 
before she had started to school, but one could 
not doubt that they were matters of fact. 
Margie believed in them as implicitly as she did 
in the sudden death that overtook any one who 
jumped the rope one hundred times without 
stopping. Lena knew of a little girl who had 
died in just that way, and as for the little girl 
who had taken diphtheria from eating snow, 
Lena had actually seen her funeral. Lena her- 
self had no fear of diphtheria. She never ate 
snow, and she was further protected by wearing 
about her neck a small bag filled with v/hat she 
called “assafitity.” 


THE FREE-THINKER 


17 

Lena’s information ranged beyond the limits 
of school life. No little pitcher ever had larger 
or quicker ears. She picked up and told to 
Margie bits of gossip and scandal concerning 
most of the people whose names Margie knew. 
Invariably she believed the worst, and failed to 
believe only when the worst was happily beyond 
her understanding. It was due to Lena Bean, 
indirectly, that Margie’s desire to be a free- 
thinker sprang into life. 

They were sitting together one noon recess, 
on the stile in front of the school-house, when 
old Major Winchester passed. Margie knew 
him by sight. He was a stately old gentleman 
who lived quite alone, except for his servants, 
in a large house at the edge of the town. He 
was not “kin” to any one in the town, and that, 
added to a certain formality in his manners and 
his mode of living, set him apart from the rest 
of Gordonsville. His house stood high in Lena’s 
list of haunted places. Lena’s eyes brightened 
when she saw him. 

“If you’ll cross your heart to never let on I 
told you,” she said mysteriously, “I’ll tell you 
what I heard my ma say about old Major Win- 
chester.” 

Margie crossed her heart, and added a wish 
to fall dead in her tracks if she ever let on. 
Lena lowered her voice. 

“Ma says he’s a free-thinker,” she announced. 


i8 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“What’s a free-thinker?” Margie asked. 

Lena evaded the question, but Margie per- 
sisted. Lena was forced to confess that she did 
not know. 

“But I reckon it’s something mighty bad,” she 
went on, “because ma said it like as if she didn’t 
want me to hear, and I didn’t dast to ask.” 

“It can’t be bad,” said Margie, on reflection. 
“My father speaks to him, and I reckon my 
father wouldn’t do that if he was anyways bad.” 

“Well,” said Lena, a trifle crestfallen, “that’s 
what ma said, anyway, and she said it like as if 
it was bad. Anyway, you crossed your heart to 
never tell.” 

Margie repeated the crossing, but the obliga- 
tion of secrecy weighed heavily upon her. All 
afternoon she pondered the matter. What could 
a free-thinker be? 

Her mother gave her a clue. She was in the 
garden with Miss Lucy Tutt when Margie came 
home from school at four o’clock, and she was 
selecting plants for the winter window stands. 
Now and then she set aside a plant for Miss 
Lucy’s basket, commenting on its qualities as 
she did so. 

“I’m going to give you one of these scarlet 
geraniums,” she said. “I’ve kept them cut back 
all summer just for the house this winter. 
They’re such free bloomers.” 

Mary John knew what a free bloomer was. 


THE FREE-THINKER 


19 


Instantly she understood what a free-thinker 
must be. It was not something bad. It was a 
person who put forth thoughts as freely and as 
easily as the scarlet geranium its flowers. It was 
exactly what Miss Cherry wanted her to be. She 
wondered if Miss Cherry herself were a free- 
thinker. 

It was difficult to obtain information on the 
subject without running the risk of falling dead 
in her tracks by violating her oath. She ven- 
tured, however, to put a leading question to her 
mother that evening. 

“Are there many free-thinkers in this town?” 
she asked. 

“Goodness me!” exclaimed her mother. 
“Where on earth did you hear that word? Do 
you know what it means?” 

“No, ma’am,” said Margie, not prepared to 
formulate her idea. 

Her mother looked relieved. 

“I hope you never will know,” she said. “No, 
1 suppose old Major Winchester is really the 
only out and out free-thinker in town, and one 
ought not to judge him too harshly. He has had 
a great deal of sorrow, and he is a very good 
man.” 

Margie grasped only so much of the speech 
as to let her know that old Major Winchester 
was the only free-thinker in town. If one 
wanted to know how to go about becoming a 


20 


HEART OF A GIRL 


free-thinker, then, it would be necessary to ask 
him. Margie wondered why Miss Cherry was 
not considered a free-thinker, but, perhaps, a 
teacher had no need to think. It was a teacher’s 
duty to compel other people to think, if they 
could find out how to do it. 

She turned the matter over in her mind for 
several days before she resolved to make an ef- 
fort to speak to old Major Winchester. Then 
she struggled to free her resolve from the 
shackles of her shyness. Major Winchester 
seemed to her more unapproachable than the 
minister or Judge Walker. He was only a de- 
gree less awe-inspiring than the principal him- 
self. However, anything was preferable to con- 
tinuing to stand bewildered and helpless before 
Miss Cherry’s scornful command to think. 
Margie was goaded to the point where she was 
ready to dare the utmost. 

Major Winchester passed her home every 
morning on his way downtown. It was on a 
Friday that Margie manoeuvred herself out the 
gate just in time to meet him. 

“Howdy do,” she said, indistinctly. 

Major Winchester looked down in some sur- 
prise. 

“Howdy, little lady,” he said, and walked on. 

For an instant Margie felt that she was about 
to step out and walk beside him. She took one 
step. Then, utter dumbness seized her, and she 


THE FREE-THINKER 


21 


merely scurried past him, hoping every moment 
that something would stay her feet and give her 
words to say. The golden opportunity was lost. 
Still, she had spoken to him, and he had an- 
swered. At least, the ice was broken. 

Saturday afternoon she set out to visit Lena 
Bean. She had a small doll and what she called 
her “doll rags” in a cigar box under her arm, 
and her mind was so full of pleasant imaginings 
that she forgot Miss Cherry’s scorn and the de- 
sirability of becoming a free-thinker. 

Lena Bean lived in a street beyond the Court 
House, which raised its Corinthian columns, 
umber-stained in their capitals, in the middle of 
the Square. An iron fence, mounted on a wide 
stone base, surrounded the Square, and no Gor- 
donsville child ever passed that way without 
climbing up to walk on the stone. Margie 
walked one side of the Square, and, jumping 
down at the corner pillar, found herself face to 
face with the free-thinker. This time he spoke 
first. 

“Howdy, little lady,” he said. 

Margie murmured a response. 

“Going my way?” the free-thinker asked. 

Margie nodded. She had still two blocks to 
walk before she came to the street in which Lena 
Bean lived. Major Winchester held out two 
fingers. Margie took them and walked up the 
street beside him. She had rehearsed the speech 


22 


HEART OF A GIRL 


she meant to make to him, but it stuck in her 
throat. Major Winchester, having offered his 
fingers, seemed to forget that she was there. He 
said nothing, and he lengthened his stride till 
Margie was obliged to trot. She determined to 
speak when they reached the end of the first 
block, but she was still mute when they passed 
the street in which Lena Bean lived. She could 
think of no words in which to declare her des- 
tination. Trained to regard her elders with 
exaggerated deference, it seemed to her impolite 
to drop the fingers without suitable words of ex- 
planation, and she did not know what words one 
ought to use. She thought despairingly of Lena 
Bean and the dolls, and trotted on wretchedly, 
hoping Major Winchester would speak. 

Suddenly a comforting idea came to her. She 
ceased to regret the lost visit. She determined 
to hold fast to the free-thinker’s hand till he re- 
membered her presence, no matter how long a 
time it was. When he did speak she would ask 
him the question. She said it over and over to 
herself. To find out how to be a free-thinker 
seemed to her the end and aim of existence. 

They passed up Main street, the child trot- 
ting doggedly beside the absent-minded old gen- 
tleman, and turned into College avenue. Margie 
was already a long way from home. She re- 
hearsed her speech now to the rhythm of Major 
Winchester’s steps. She could say it all in four 


THE FREE-THINKER 


23 


paces. At the beginning of the cross street which 
led out to Major Winchester’s house, she stum- 
bled. Major Winchester became suddenly 
aware of her presence. 

“Are you going out this street?” he asked. 

Margie’s speech came out in a sort of chant. 

“What — do you have to do — to get to be — a 
free-thinker?” she asked. 

Major Winchester stopped short. 

“Bless my soul!” he cried. “What do you 
mean, child?” 

The first plunge taken, Margie went ahead 
boldly. 

“I’m so dumb about mental arithmetic,” she 
said. “I can’t add. I don’t use my brain like 
Miss Cherry wants me to. I wanted to ask you 
how to think. You’re a free-thinker, ain’t you? 
Can’t you show me how to be one, too?” 

She paused, quite out of breath, and Major 
Winchester stood still while the meaning of her 
words took shape in his mind. He coughed be- 
hind his hand, and then he looked down at the 
wistful child thoughtfully. The earnestness of 
her appeal was irresistible. 

“Come along home with me,” he said, “and 
maybe we can straighten this thing out.” 

Margie took his hand again, and poured out 
her troubles as she walked. 

She showed her mind to him as Miss Cherry 
had never glimpsed it. They went in at the tall 


24 


HEART OF A GIRL 


swinging gate, and up the gravel walk to the 
house. Major Winchester led the way to the 
library. There before the open fire Margie con- 
tinued her recital. 

“I can’t add unless I feel of my fingers,” she 
said, “and Miss Cherry won’t let me do that. 
‘You must use your brain,’ she says, but I don’t 
seem to learn to add at all with my brain.” 

“Margie,” said the free-thinker, “I’ll tell you 
a secret. I always count on my fingers.” 

“Do you wriggle them?” asked Margie. 

“No,” said the old gentleman, “but I did 
when I was your age. I’ve been at it so long 
now that I don’t need to wriggle them. I can 
count ever so many fingers all at once. So can 
you when you learn to know your fingers well. I 
don’t even move mine now. I just think them 
quick.” 

These were exactly Lena Bean’s words, but, 
somehow, from the old gentleman they sounded 
hopeful. Counting on one’s fingers was not 
wrong in itself, then. It was the slowness with 
which one counted that constituted the offense. 
Margie began to see the possibility of adding 
with lightning speed when she had learned her 
fingers well enough — learned them so well that 
they added six at a time, or eight, instead of one. 
She breathed a deep sigh. Then she thought of 
old Major Winchester, seeing him in a new 
light. 


THE FREE-THINKER 


25 


“Why,” she said, “then you’re not so very 
different from me, after all, are you? You’re 
not really a free-thinker, at all.” 

The old gentleman smiled a little wistfully. 

“I don’t believe I am,” he said. “I reckon 
I’m just an ignorant child like you.” 


CHAPTER III. 


PARTNERS IN CRIME. 

Miss Cherry was Margaret’s first teacher in 
the real school, and Lena Bean was her first seat- 
mate. Miss Cherry taught her reading and 
writing and arithmetic, but Lena Bean taught 
her things which seemed to her of much greater 
importance. It was Lena Bean who made her 
a citizen of the school world. 

The first thing Lena taught her was the 
proper place of boys in the world. From the 
high stone stoop of the school-house, the entrance 
which only the teachers ever used, to the stile, 
there ran a wide plank walk. To the right of 
this was the boys’ play-ground; to the left, the 
girls’. Margie had always liked playing with 
Georgie Budd in the “s’pos’n’ ” days, but now 
they were friends no longer. Georgie was a 
boy, and he played on the boys’ side. He was no 
longer even Georgie. The teacher called him 
George, and the boys called him Buck. 

Lena disapproved boys altogether. They 
were rough and rude and played marbles for 
keeps. You could not trust them at all. They 
were even bad in school, and none of them but 
26 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


27 


Otto Wolf, who was a “sissy,” cared about being 
head of the class. Margie never could under- 
stand why anyone wanted to be bad in school. 
Teachers had such unpleasant ways toward one 
if one didn’t study. They kept one after school, 
and sent one to the principal. George Budd had 
been sent up twice and whipped once. Margie 
wondered how he endured the humiliation of 
having the other boys and girls know what had 
happened to him. It mortified her exceedingly 
just to have some one go above her in spelling. 
But Lena said boys were different. Boys, for 
example, couldn’t jump the rope. The wide 
plank walk was an ideal place for ropes, and it 
was a great day for Margie when, after swaying 
back and forth for a long time, she finally caught 
the rhythm of the turning and ran in successfully 
“back door.” Boys couldn’t even stand in and 
jump. George tried it one day out of sheer 
bravado. The teetering balance between jumps 
that came so naturally to Margie was beyond 
him. His leaps were pitiful to see, and he al- 
ways missed on the third turn of the rope. 
Margie could do plain jumping up to ninety-nine 
times. Nobody ever went beyond that because 
everybody knew about the little girl who fell 
dead at a hundred jumps. Margie could “bake 
bread” and “read the Bible,” skipping arm in 
arm with Lena. She could even jump “pepper 
and salt” till the turning was too fast for any- 


28 


HEART OF A GIRL 


one. By the end of her first year she could do 
anything that Lena did. She knew all the out- 
door games, and all the indoor games. On 
bright days she played jacks with Lena on the 
stone steps. On rainy days they played “Green 
Gravel” and “King William” in the basement 
playroom. Sometimes, especially when they 
were in Miss Blake’s room — Miss Blake taught 
No. 5, and was not strict — they stayed in at re- 
cess and rubbed the blackboards clean for the 
teacher. The great fun of that was in the free- 
dom it gave you to draw candles. You drew the 
candle and then you rubbed chalk in the groove 
of the eraser and blew it hard against the board. 
It made a cloudy splatch that was exactly like a 
flame. 

Now, between six and eleven you can go 
through a great many rooms if you are pro- 
moted steadily. Between six and eleven, too, 
there comes a time when you find out that Lena 
Bean is sometimes mistaken. Margie was only 
in No. 4 when she found out that what Lena 
called “the dungeon” was only the cellar where 
the janitor kept the coal. It was not a place 
where the principal locked up bad boys, and no- 
body had ever starved to death in there, as Lena 
said. The last vestige of her belief in Lena’s 
infallibility fled when they were in No. 6 to- 
gether. Margie was absent two days, and 
during that time Miss Petworth read out the 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


29 


words of a song to be written down and learned. 
Miss Petworth was disagreeable. It was no 
part of her plan to help one make up lessons 
lost through absence. Margie was obliged to 
ask Lena for a copy of the song. Lena gave it 
gladly. 

“The myrtle and the cypress vine, 

The passing flour, the cunning wine. 

The farmer reads his old combine, 

Two decks the fairy bower.” 

There seemed no sense to it, but a great many 
songs lacked that. Margie learned it exactly as 
Lena had it. However, it puzzled her. She 
knew that many farmers read her father’s paper, 
which was the Republican, and he brought home 
every week great bundles of exchanges — papers 
and magazines. There was one called The 
Living Age. She supposed the “Old Combine” 
was something of the sort. She asked Sister 
Betty about it. Betty immediately explained 
Lena’s errors. The verse ran : 

“The myrtle and the cypress vine. 

The passion flower, the columbine. 

To form a wreath they all combine 
To deck the fairy bower.” 

Further, Betty told about it at the dinner table, 
and everybody laughed. Margie went back to 
school in no pleasant frame of mind toward 


30 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Lena. Lena had exposed her to ridicule, and 
she never believed in Lena again. Lena had 
heard that the Governor was coming to visit 
Gordonsville, but Margie did not believe it. 
Lena said, too, that the Board of Education had 
told the principal he ought to have the children 
do a fire drill once a week. They ought to be 
trained to march out quickly in case of fire. 
Margie did not believe that, either. 

However, Lena was right about both these 
things. The Governor was expected to visit 
Gordonsville on a speech-making tour, and the 
fire drill soon became a thing to be expected. 
One tap of the bell was the signal for it. The 
instant that was heard, everybody dropped 
books, formed in line, and marched down and 
out. Miss Petworth’s room was on the third 
floor. The stairs began at each end of the long 
hall, and wound round and round to the base- 
ment door. It made one feel weak in the knees 
to look down from the top landing to the bot- 
tom of the stair well. Lena knew about a boy 
who leaned too far over the banister and fell 
headlong to the basement, so that when they 
picked him up every bone in his body was broken. 
Margie doubted it. Many of his bones might 
have been broken, but not all ; and what was the 
name of the boy? 

Lena’s only reply to this was, “All right for 
you.” 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


31 

And for two days after that they sat very far 
apart in their seat. At recess Lena switched her 
skirts and went off to play with Susie Taylor. 
Margie divided her chewing gum with Lucy 
Denby. She made up a secret with Lucy. They 
referred to it mysteriously before the other girls 
as “Sugar.” Lena said they might have secrets 
till they were black in the face for all she cared, 
and she and Susie had one which they spoke of 
as “Buttons.” Both Margie and Lena were very 
unhappy because they had been friends and seat- 
mates all the way from No. i to No. 6, and a 
friendship like that is not to be broken off so 
suddenly without regret. 

Margie told her mother about it, and it 
seemed to her that her mother was not sympa- 
thetic. 

“There was a little boy quite badly hurt there 
years ago,” she said. “Lena exaggerated. The 
stairs are dangerous and I hope you always go 
down close to the wall.” 

And for the rest of their quarrel, Mrs. Car- 
lin dismissed it with a careless: 

“Oh, you’ll make it up soon.” 

They did not walk on the same side of the 
street going home. And at the corner where 
their ways parted they dallied no longer, each 
trying to get the other’s “face tag” last. 

On most other Saturdays, Lena had come to 
see Margie, or Margie had gone to visit her, 


32 


HEART OF A GIRL 


but on the Saturday after their quarrel, Margie 
stayed at home, and played alone. George Budd 
was alone that day, too, and in the middle of the 
forenoon he came over. He sometimes did that 
still when the other boys in the neighborhood 
were well away, for he liked Margie. Of 
course, you couldn’t walk to school with a girl, 
or pay any attention to her after you got there, 
unless you wanted the boys to say, “There goes 
Georgie and his girl,” but Saturdays things were 
different. One Saturday he had even brought 
Margie into the game the Taylor boys and the 
big Melton boys were playing. The biggest 
Melton boy told him to. The big willow down 
by the Wagenhals’ fence and the locust tree with 
the wild grape vine over it at the very back of 
the Carlins’ two acres were splendid forts, one 
for soldiers and one for Indians. There were 
no other places in the neighborhood to compare 
to them, and it is a principle of life that you 
can’t play in our yard without letting us play, 
too. Margie was allowed to be the captive. 
The biggest Taylor boy would seize her by the 
hair and brandish his tomahawk, and down the 
brave boys in blue, Hugh Melton at their 
head, would come charging to the rescue. The 
Indians were always defeated, and sometimes 
this discouraged them so much that they wanted 
to be soldiers for a while. Hugh Melton, how- 
ever, was larger than Jim Taylor, and that set- 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


33 


tied it^ Margie had good hair for scalping, and 
made a splendid captive. It was silly of her, of 
course, to cry “King’s Ex” when the scalping 
became too real, and nobody but a girl would 
think that saying “Lick lock, lick lock all around 
the house” would keep the Indians— sometimes 
Hugh changed off and was Sitting Bull, instead 
of General Grant — from breaking Into the fort 
and carrying her off. It was all very exciting, 
but not the game one cared to play every Satur- 
day. This Saturday she was glad the Melton 
boys and the Taylors had gone off after hickory 
nuts. George was at least better than no one. 

“I — ay ow — nay ome — say Ing — thay,” he 
said, as he came around to the carriage house 
where Margie was watching the kittens. 

“Ot — whay?” asked Margie. She spoke Hog 
Latin as well as he did. 

“lid — way apes — gray,” said George. 

After that he spoke English, which was easier 
if one had much to say. 

“I betcha I know where they’re ripe,” he said. 
“Let’s go out to Ballam’s pasture and get some.” 

“All right,” said Margie. “I’ll go ask 
mother.” 

“I don’t have to ask my mother,” said 
Georgie. “When she asks me where I’m going 
I just^ay, ‘Oh, just off.’ ” 

“You do, too, ask her,” retorted Margie. 

“I don’t. I’m going downtown to-night to 


34 


HEART OF A GIRL 


see the torch-light parade and I don’t have to 
even tell her where I’m going.” 

“You dassent go without telling her,” Margie 
insisted. 

“Well, I’ve been to one torch-light parade al- 
ready, and I didn’t tell her where I was going.” 

“Yes; and your father took you. We were 
down at my father’s office and I saw you. And 
it was when your mother was in Jersey ville.” 

“Well,” said Georgie, “you ain’t going to see 
the parade to-night and I am. My Uncle Joe’s 
going to march. He’s boss of it. He’s got a 
soldier hat and a blue cape and a ballot-box 
torch.” 

“They don’t wear blue capes at torch-lights,” 
said Margie. “I saw them.” 

“That was the Democrat parade,” said 
George. “They ain’t nothing.” 

“My father’s a Democrat. All nice people 
are.” 

“They ain’t neither. My father’s a Repub- 
lican.” 

“That’s no sign,” Margie flashed back. 

“My father’s just as good as your father is, 
and better, too, Smarty. Girls don’t know noth- 
ing, anyway.” 

Never since the world began has a woman 
replied to that taunt with contemptuous silence. 
For full two mjnutes the battle raged. Then 
George marched out the gate chanting ; 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


35 


“Garfield rides a white horse, 

Hancock rides a mule. 

Garfield is a gentleman, 

And Hancock is a fool.” 

And Margie, bursting with rage, stuck out 
her tongue and screamed. 

Mrs. Carlin came to the door. 

“Margie,” she said, sternly, “if I hear you 
talk like that again I’ll punish you.” 

“Well, he began it,” Margie sobbed. 

“You’re just as much to blame as he is,” her 
mother answered, and shut the door. 

It was a cruel and unfeeling world. Her 
mother took sides against her. George was a 
hateful, mean thing, and Lena Bean — Lena 
Bean was the cause of it all. “I’ll fix her,” 
Margie said, and turned over in her mind a 
dozen ways of getting even. Not one of them 
seemed adequate, and beside, Monday was too 
far off to wait for. Margie decided to settle 
Lena Bean as she had settled everybody who of- 
fended her for a long time. There are times 
when you think things about fathers and mothers 
which cannot be said openly. Even if you say 
them under your breath, you are likely to be ac- 
cused of “chunnering,” which is a spanking of- 
fense. Margie said the things she had to say 
in a deeper way than that. She had evolved a 
cipher and an alphabet in hieroglyphics for the 


HEART OF A GIRL 


36 

expression of her opinions. To write in hiero- 
glyphics required a great deal of time, and if 
you lost the paper which told you what each 
mark meant you could never read what you had 
written. The cipher was almost as easy as plain 
writing. If you wanted to spell a word in it, 
you changed each consonant to the following 
one in the alphabet, and each vowel to the next 
vowel. “George, a bad boy,” became in the. 
cipher, “Hiushi, e cef cuz.” It did Margie a 
world of good to put down just what she thought 
of George and her mother and Lena Bean and 
the world in general. She spent the rest of the 
morning on the composition. When it was fin- 
ished she rolled it into a wad, carried it down 
into the orchard and buried it under an apple 
tree, which she marked with keel. That settled 
Lena Bean and the world. Some day, years and 
years and years afterward, somebody would find 
the paper and see how ill used she had been. A 
dim knowledge of the way a long-buried city had 
been dug up impelled her to seek the sympathy 
of posterity in this way. Cipher indictments 
mouldered under many an apple tree. 

The settlement of Lena Bean was but two 
days buried, however, when the quarrel was 
patched up after a fashion, and the day after 
that, Margie and Lena, as partners in crime, 
were obliged to return to their former intimacy. 
Lena made the first overtures of peace. She 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


37 


was deposed from her leadership in their friend- 
ship, and, doubtless, she felt it. Her peace of- 
fering was a book mark, a round mat of wool of 
all colors^ — not yarn nor zephyr, but wool in the 
shape fingers pluck it from stockings, or hoods, 
or nubias or cloaks. The red in it was from 
Lena’s stockings, the touch of blue from the 
blanket on her bed, the brown a bit she had 
picked from her Sunday hood. The mat repre- 
sented Lena’s heart, and Margie accepted it. At 
noon recess that day she divided her cocoanut 
cake with Lena, and Lucy Denby and Susie Tay- 
lor no longer existed for either of them. They 
were not demonstrative. Neither confessed to 
being in the wrong. They simply ignored the 
past, but thereafter it was Margie who told 
things, and Lena who believed. 

The Governor was expected almost any day 
now, but the exact date of his arrival could not 
be known in advance. He was traveling on a 
special train and making speeches in every town. 
Sometimes, even, he went into country districts, 
away from the railroad, to rouse the voters. On 
Monday they knew he was in Jerseyville — the 
Monday when Lena and Margie made up. On 
Tuesday he might drive to Shaw’s Point or Span- 
ish Needle, or, passing these by, he might come 
direct to Gordonsville. When he did come, some 
one would bring word to the janitor, and then at 
the tap of the bell the children would march out 


HEART OF A GIRE 


38 

to stand before the school and sing a patriotic 
song. Miss Petworth told them this. 

“And what song shall we sing for him?” she 
asked. 

George Budd had a favorite song. He raised 
his hand, quivering with eagerness. 

“Well, George?” said Miss Petworth. 

“ ‘Pull for the Shore,’ ” shouted George. 

Of course, Miss Petworth laughed. The idea 
of singing a hymn to a Governor. Nobody but a 
boy would be so silly. Margie held up her hand. 

“‘Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,’” she said, 
with a glance of withering contempt at George. 

“Why, of course,” said Miss Petworth, and 
she laughed again. Indeed, she laughed to a 
quite unteacherllke extent. All the rest of the 
morning, and clear Into the afternoon session, 
she was In an uncommonly good humor. She 
even went so far as to confer a wholly unprece- 
dented favor on Lena and Margie. 

When the A class in arithmetic went to the 
board to find least common multiples, the chalk 
box was discovered to contain only broken bits, 
and two erasers were too worn to use. Miss Pet- 
worth called Lena to the desk. 

“I want you to go to the principal’s room and 
ask for a box of chalk and two new erasers,” she 
said, and out of sheer good-nature she added, 
“Margie may go with you.” 

The two ambassadors tip-toed town the hall, 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


39 

giggling rapturously. The principal’s room was 
on the floor below, and there sat the big boys 
and girls. It was not everybody who could 
march in among them in conscious rectitude and 
ask for chalk and erasers. Lena and Margaret 
felt the importance of the occasion, but they be- 
gan to giggle again as soon as they were out of 
the room. They raced each other up the stairs, 
and Lena went so far as to dare Margie to race 
along the hall to the door of Miss Petworth’s 
room. Margie proposed a counter-dare. 

“Come on in the cloak-room,” she whispered. 
“I’ve got an apple in my bucket. Let’s eat it 
before we go back.” 

The cloak-room opened off the class-room, 
and off the corridor as well. It was roughly 
plastered, and at one side the bell rope came up 
through a wooden pump tube in the floor, to 
disappear through a similar tube in the ceiling. 
The great bell hung just over the trap door at 
the top of the dressing-room, and down on the 
first floor, directly beneath, was the closet in 
which the janitor stood to ring it. 

Margie produced the apple and each took a 
bite, both thrilling with a delicious sense of wick- 
edness. Miss Petworth would never know that 
they were not engaged simply on their errand. 

“S’posing she finds out?” whispered Lena. 

“I’m not afraid of her,” whispered Margie. 
“Let’s eat it all.” 


40 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Each took another bite. 

Lena looked at the bell rope. 

“I dare you to touch it,” she said. 

A spirit of wild recklessness swept over Mar- 
gie. Without a word, she reached up as high 
as she could and caught the rope. She never 
knew whether she intended to pull it or not. 
Possibly, Lena’s frightened push dragged her 
hands. Over their heads pealed out a note as 
terrible as the crack of doom. Margie and Lena 
had rung the bell. 

White-faced, they confronted each other. 
From the room beyond there came the sound of 
marching feet. The door opened and the line 
began to pass through the cloak-room, each girl 
lifting her cloak and hat from their hook as she 
passed without pausing. Lena fell into step 
without another glance at her fellow-criminal, 
and deserted her. One by one the girls passed 
Margie. She had been guilty of a crime un- 
heard of in the annals of school wickedness. 
What would — what awful, awful thing would 
happen to her when they found her out? Per- 
haps it would be a matter for the Governor to at- 
tend to. Miss Petworth came last in the line. 
On the very scene of that black crime she chose 
to be facetious. 

“Leave the poor, old stranded chalk, Mar- 
gie,” she said, gaily, “and pull for the shore. 
The Governor has come.” 


PARTNERS IN CRIME 


4T 

Margie dragged her leaden feet out the door. 
Tramp, tramp, the steady marching went on, 
down and down and around and around the 
stair-well. Had anybody on earth ever done any- 
thing so incredible? Ananias and Sapphira — 
what had they done? They hadn’t rung the 
bell when no’Governor was at hand. Oh ! good- 
ness, there outside the basement door was the 
principal with his visitors’ smile. He was lead- 
ing the way to the stone steps. He was forming 
the boys and girls into lines. He looked pleasant. 
How sickeningly awful it was ! And Lena Bean 
ready to say she didn’t do it. Surely in a mo- 
ment the principal-would seize her — what would 
he do? 

Her knees were too weak to run. Running 
wouldn’t do any good, anyway. 

“He is not in sight yet,” the principal was 
saying, “but ” 

And here there burst out from some far corner 
of the basement, the janitor. 

“Who rang that bell?” he shouted. “Who 
rang that bell?” 

The only answer was too faint to be heard in 
the confusion, but It came from Lena Bean. 

“I didn’t,” said Lena. 

And, unsuspected, at the end of the line, stood 
the real criminal, doomed to live from that time 
forward with the weight of a guilty secret on 
her soul. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE LAST OF FRED DOUGLAS. 

School was not quite the same after the day 
of the bell. The principal attributed the ringing 
to the mischief of some boy, tempted in passing. 
Then everybody but Lena and Margie forgot it. 
Once, in a dispute as to whether a ball caught on 
the second bounce puts the girl who batted it 
out or not, Lena made a threat. Margie re- 
fused to be cowed. 

“If you tell on me. I’ll tell on you,” she said. 
“You helped do it.” 

“I didn’t really do it, though,” said Lena. 

“Well, you knocked Miss Petworth’s ink- 
bottle off one morning before school,” Margie 
retorted. “You told me so.” 

“I was just putting some flowers on her desk.” 

“Well, you knocked it off. If you tell. I’ll 
tell,” said Margie. “I know lots to tell.” 

Lena did not tell. 

The secret weighed on Margie, however. She 
had never before kept anything from her 
mother, except, of course, the cipher and a few 
42 


THE LAST OF FRED DOUGLAS 43 

personal opinions. Possibly, the bell matter 
would have gone into her store of reservations, 
without further consideration, if it had not been 
for the minister and a sermon he preached. He 
was an earnest and eloquent man, and he laid 
great stress on the importance of confessing one’s 
sins. “Confess and be saved,” he said impres- 
sively, three times in succession, and then he de- 
scribed minutely what would happen to you if 
you weren’t saved. Margie had burned her 
hand on the corn-popper just the day before, and 
the minister’s words impressed her deeply. That 
night, too, there was a fire in the town. Margie, 
who slept with Betty upstairs, heard the clanging 
of the fire-bell. It was the most terrifying sound 
in all the world. She and Betty ran shivering to 
the window. The sky was alight. Margie be- 
gan to cry with terror. 

Mrs. Carlin came up the stairs. 

“Do you think it will catch our house?” Mar- 
gie sobbed. Outside in the street she could hear 
men running. 

“No, honey, no,” said her mother. “It’s two 
miles away, at least. Father is going.” 

Somehow, when father went to a fire, you felt 
safer. Father would see to things, but it was 
dreadful to hear the bell. Your teeth chattered 
so and your knees shook. There was only one 
thing to do, and that was to ask mother to let 
you go into her bed. After that you stopped 


44 


HEART OF A GIRL 


shaking and mother’s voice sounded safe and 
comforting as she talked to you in the dark. She 
told you stories about the early days — ^when she 
was a baby, and the prairie wolves came to her 
house, when her father was away, and about how 
her mother threw burning brands from the fire- 
place Out among them, and how they fought 
under the floor and pushed the loose boards up, 
and Grandmother was terribly afraid till Grand- 
father came home, and said the wolves wanted 
the venison hung outside the house beyond their 
reach. And she told, too, of the time Grand- 
father was a boy and set the prairie on fire 
through disputing with his brother as to whose 
jackknife could strike fire from flint best. 

“And did he tell his father who did it?” Mar- 
gie asked. 

“No,” said her mother, “he didn’t tell for 
years and years.” 

So it was years and years before Margie told 
who rang the bell. 

Mrs. Carlin told her something else that night 
— a wonderful thing. Father had decided to go 
into partnership with a man who owned a paper 
out in Dakota. 

“And we are going to move out there?” Mar- 
gie asked. 

Moving was a new idea to her. No one she 
knew but George Budd had ever moved. 

It took Mr. Budd more than a week to carry 


THE LAST OF FRED DOUGLAS 45 

their furniture in the spring wagon, and Mrs. 
Budd walked from the old house to the new 
with lamps and china in baskets, day after day. 
Going to Dakota would take ever so much 
longer than that. 

“Will we be movers?” Margie asked. 

“No,” said her mother, “we will go In the 
cars.” 

“Movers” were people who had big farm 
wagons with white cloth tops built over them. 
Sometimes they came and stayed near Ballam’s 
pasture for quite a long time, and lived all the 
while In their wagon. Now and then they came 
to the back door and borrowed bread and pies, 
but they were not like tramps, nor gypsies. 

What a thing going to Dakota would be to 
tell Lena Bean — Lena, who had never been on 
the cars at all. Margie had already been to 
Grandmother’s house, and to go there you slept 
on the cars. In funny beds behind curtains, all 
night. Father and mother had been all over 
the world, from Colorado to the Centennial. 
And Betty had been to New York and seen Cen- 
tral Park. 

Margie felt very important. She dazzled 
Lena with the stories of Adams City, the big 
town In Dakota, where there was a boom. They 
found it on the map In their geographies. It 
looked as far away as New York, and going 
there meant seeing wonderful things on the way. 


46 


HEART OF A GIRL 


There was a great deal to be done before the 
Carlins could start. Freda Wagenhals came 
over and helped Mrs. Carlin sew for two weeks. 
After that they had to decide what things to take 
with them. Most of the furniture, of course, 
and the books and pictures, bedding and dishes 
— but not the real things, Matilda, the cat, and 
Old Sam, the horse, and Quack, the pet duck, 
and Brownie, the cow, and Fred Douglas, the 
dog. 

There was something almost dreadful about 
seeing everything carried out of the house. It 
was a mixed feeling — part of it like the third 
of July or the day before the circus, and part of 
it like the marching downstairs after she and 
Lena rang the bell. 

It gave her the strangest feeling of emptiness 
somewhere inside her, to see Mr. Budd come 
and drive Old Sam off. She wanted to cry, and 
Betty and mother, too, did cry. Grandma Wa- 
genhals took Quack and Matilda, and Grandpa 
Wagenhals bought Brownie. George Budd was 
to have Fred Douglas. 

He intended to train Fred, he said. A dog 
ought to know how to do things. What he 
meant to make of Fred was a bird dog. Nature 
in making him had not adhered rigidly to any set 
dog pattern. He was black, like the Milton 
boy’s ratter, but the splotch on his breast was 
white. His ears were too large to be small and 


THE LAST OF FRED DOUGLAS 47 

too small to be large. George was sure that he 
was part pointer, but the smallest Taylor boy 
declared that no dog without a tail could be a 
pointer. 

“He had a tail when he was a pup,” Margie 
explained. “Black Sam chopped it off because 
there was a worm in the end of it, and he kept 
trying to run away from it, and that’s what gave 
him fits.” 

“Was it a pointer tail?” George asked. 

Margie could not remember. 

“It was just a plain tail,” she said. “A black 
tail. Maybe it would have been a pointer tail 
if it had had time to grow.” 

“He ain’t no pointer,” the Taylor boy in- 
sisted. “He’s a fiste. He can’t hunt birds. I 
bet he’s gun shy, anyway.” 

“What’s gun shy?” asked Margie. 

“Afraid of a gun.” 

“He isn’t afraid of anything,” Margie de- 
clared. “He’s brave as he can be. He’s a 
lovely dog.” 

George, too, had faith in Fred’s valor. 

He had no gun to test him with, but Margie 
suggested a fire-cracker. They took Fred into 
the Budds’ kitchen, where a fire-cracker could 
not set anything on fire, and Margie held him 
while George fired off the cracker. Mrs. Budd 
was a careful housekeeper, who kept the kitchen 
screen door on all winter. Fred Douglas hurled 


HEART OF A GIRL 


48 

himself through the rusted wire netting and 
ran. 

“He is gun shy,” said George. “I bet there 
ain’t a bit of pointer in him.” 

“I don’t care if there isn’t,” said Margie, al- 
most in tears. “He’s just as much dog. He’s 
all dog, anyway. He’s a splendid barker, and 
you’ve heard him sing when Cousin Cyrus 
played the clarionet. If you don’t like him 
I’ll give him to Cousin Cyrus. He thinks 
he’s a lovely dog. He said he was a hit-or- 
miss dog.” 

“I want him,” said George. “He’s a watch 
dog, that’s what he is. Pointers ain’t any good 
for that.” 

“Are you going to tell Will Taylor he’s gun 
shy?” 

“No,” said George, stoutly. “I bet Will Tay- 
lor never had a dog that could jump plumb 
through a screen door. He’s a trick dog. But 
I won’t tell if you don’t want me to. I’ll say 
he ain’t afraid of anything.” 

“That would be a story, though.” 

“Oh, that’s all right,” said George. “If you 
say to yourself ‘Over the left,’ when you tell a 
story, it makes it all right.” 

And Fred Douglas was indeed a watch dog. 
When Margie came to George’s house to say 
good-bye, on almost her last day in Gordonsville, 
George and Fred walked down to Cousin Betty’s 


THE LAST OF FRED DOUGLAS 49 

with her. As they turned the first corner they 
saw a drove of cows coming up Main street. 

‘‘Are you afraid of cows?” George asked. 

^ “I wouldn’t be if I didn’t have red on,” said 
Margie. “If I had a blue hat I wouldn’t mind 
them ‘very much.’ ” 

“Girls are always afraid,” said* George. 
“Well, I can’t go any farther; my mother wants 
me.” 

And turning abruptly, George climbed a 
fence and disappeared. Margie snatched off 
her hat and hid it under her cloak, trembling 
with fear. Then Fred Douglas, entirely of his 
own accord, ran barking at the cows and drove 
them to the other side of the way. George re- 
appeared a little later. He had remembered 
that his mother did not want him, after all, and 
he could go all the way to Cousin Betty’s and 
see that nothing happened to Margie. 

The last week the Carlins stayed at Cousin 
Betty’s. Margie was not in school then, and it 
seemed so strange to walk by the school. It was 
like playing hookey, only that it was right. So 
many people came to see mother at Cousin Bet- 
ty’s. Sometimes mother looked as if she had 
been crying when they went away. Father was 
already in Dakota, and when he wrote that he 
had found a house, Mrs. Carlin decided to start 
at once. 

Ever so many people came to the station to see 


50 


HEART OF A GIRL 


them off. Margie was wearing her best cloak 
and hat. She had her paint-box and some paper 
in a box under her arm, and she meant to draw 
pictures of the things she saw to send to Lena 
Bean. It is always delightful and thrilling and 
scary to be waiting for a train. Your heart 
jumps clear up into your throat when you hear 
the whistle. You run into the waiting-room to 
tell mother, and everybody hurries out, and talks 
fast, and counts the bundles and bags, and says 
good-bye, and kisses everybody else and says 
good-bye again, and to be sure to write as soon 
as you get there and then — ^you are on the train. 

Margie leaned out the window, to wave good- 
bye to Lena Bean. George Budd came up just 
then, with Fred Douglas barking behind him. 

“Good-bye, Fred,” called Margie. Fred 
Douglas ran along the platform, jumping up 
toward the window, writhing and twisting, and 
barking and begging to come, too. The train 
began to move faster. Fred Douglas ran beside 
it, off the platform and along the track, yelping 
and wailing. Little by little he dropped behind. 
Once he gained a little. Then the train crossed 
a culvert. It was too wide for him to jump. 
Margie saw him, just a little speck, far back, sit- 
ting there looking after her. She put her face 
down close to the window, drew her arm up over 
it, and cried. Only five minutes ago she could 
have patted Fred Douglas, and now — he was 


THE LAST OF FRED DOUGLAS 5 1 

sitting there all alone looking after her. She 
was going to Dakota to live always. 

The Carlins broke their journey by stopping 
at Springfield and at Chicago to visit their kins- 
folk, but from Chicago on they stopped only to 
change cars in St. Paul. That was early one 
morning, and Margie was eager to travel by 
day, because at night, even if you sleep next the 
window, you can see very little. Beyond St. 
Paul, perhaps, there would be Indians and 
forests and high hills, because this was far, far 
out West. It was a very long day. It was late 
in March, but up there in Minnesota it looked 
like mid-winter. You could see drifts that looked 
as high as the train. The. country grew flatter. 
There were no hedges, no fences, no trees. The 
towns were very far apart, and there seemed to 
be no farm-houses, unless you could call those 
little shanties here and there farm-houses. It 
all looked cold and big and desolate. It would 
be very different when one came to Dakota, 
where Adams City and the boom were. There 
was a street car in Adams City. Margie had 
seen a picture of it. How far it seemed across 
those bare, snow-covered prairies! There was 
still nothing but prairie and snow as far as you 
could see, when they lighted the lamps in the 
car. It always gives you a strange feeling in the 
center of you to look out at the snow when it 
is growing dark. You cannot explain what the 


52 


HEART OF A GIRL 


feeling is, but it is not exactly happy, nor yet 
unhappy. It seemed very late at night when 
Mrs. Carlin began to gather her parcels and 
bags together. She took down Margie’s hat and 
cloak and helped her put them on, and Betty put 
on her things. The train stopped a little while 
at a station where there were electric lights. 
Then it hurried across a bridge, and there were 
more electric lights and houses. They were all 
ready to step out now. The train went slower, 
and stopped. The man on the platform was 
father, but he didn’t look quite as father used to 
look. It was dark and cold, and everybody was 
talking at once. Margie drew a deep breath. 
This was Dakota at last. 


CHAPTER V. 

CITIZEN OF THE SCHOOL WORLD. 

Mr. Carlin had written his wife that they 
were to live in Edwards’ Terrace. Edwards’ 
Terrace suggested to Margie beautiful houses 
rising in tiers on the side of a hill, and she had 
longed to live on a hill. In Gordonsville, things 
were not fancifully named, except the Duplex 
Drug Store and Mr. Smart’s butcher wagon. 
The wagon had “The Bella Golden” painted on 
it, in honor of the lady whom Mr. Smart had 
seen in “The Danites,” when the troupe played 
on the stage set up in the court-room. In Gor- 
donsville you lived out near the college, or near 
the Square, or over toward the graveyard. Gor- 
donsville was only a town. Adams City was a 
city. It had water-works and a street car. 

The Carlins went to Edwards’ Terrace the 
next morning after their arrival. There was no 
hill. The Terrace was merely thirty or forty 
houses set down in rows on the prairie and built 
after two patterns. The smaller houses were a 
story and a half high, with roofs slanting 
sharply toward the street. At the back the roofs 
sloped in the same way and went off at a less 
53 


54 


HEART OF A GIRL 


abrupt angle over the kitchens. Margie thought 
a house like this looked like a lady with her hat 
down over her eyes, and her hair flowing out in a 
waterfall behind. Houses always had expres- 
sions to her, but she had learned that you cannot 
make other people see that one house wears 
bangs and another parts its hair in the middle, 
any more than you can show them where to find 
the faces of men and animals you see on wall 
paper. The Carlins’ house was one of the kind 
with parted hair. The two windows in the upper 
story were eyes. The roof of the little gallery 
below them formed a lip, and two windows be- 
low were fangs. Margie tried to explain this to 
Betty, but Betty couldn’t see it. 

“I like the house,” Betty said, “but I don’t 
see why father didn’t take a smaller one with 
city water in it. Just like a man !” 

Margie disliked hearing her father spoken of 
in that way. It would never have occurred to 
her to criticise anything he did. He was an 
aloof personality, but absolutely wise. He be- 
longed to the world of grown people, and even 
among them he was a superior. He was to be 
obeyed when he spoke, but it was never neces- 
sary to ask his permission for anything. Mrs. 
Carlin never said, “I’ll see what your father 
says.” “I’ll tell your father” was an unheard- 
of threat in the family. Except on Sundays, 
father was always at the office. He never spoke 


CITIZEN OF SCHOOL WORLD 5 5 

unless he was obliged to, and he never scolded. 
On rare occasions he would take Margie by the 
hand and march up and down the sitting-room, 
chanting ; 

“We’ll awake the fiends that sleep below. 
We’ll awake the fiends that sleep below.” 

It was all he remembered of an old Dart- 
mouth College song, and he had no idea of a 
tune. This was the nearest approach to in- 
timacy with his children. Margie was im- 
mensely proud of him. He was an editor, and 
he knew everything. 

Betty seemed suddenly more her senior than 
the five years’ difference in their ages warranted. 

“We had a pump at home,” Margie said. 

It had been a lovely pump, too, one of the 
kind Mr. Waggoner put up. It was painted 
white and smoke-blackened in such a way that 
it was a dapple gray. 

“We’ll have to buy water here,” said Betty, 
wise in her mother’s confidence. 

And buy water they did. At first, while the 
cold still held, they bought it by the cord. The 
clear, green blocks of ice were piled up in the 
yard, and Helga Olson, the maid servant, 
chopped them into small pieces with an ax and 
melted them in the tank on the back of the stove. 
In warmer weather the water wagons came twice 


HEART OF A GIRL 


56 

a week, and a barrel of water cost twenty-five 
cents. The water of wells, even there, so near 
the Red River, was not fit for human beings to 
drink. While the cold held, too, their house 
was banked almost to the sills of the first-story 
windows, with earth, held up by stakes and 
boards, and outside each window was a storm 
window, with immovable panes, and a little oval 
shutter at the bottom to open for ventilation. 
Over the front door was built the unpainted 
storm shed. These were things Margie had 
never seen before. 

For the first week, they were busy getting set- 
tled. Then Margie started to school. Miss 
Susy Halway, the teacher, called for her early 
one morning. Miss Susy came from Gordons- 
ville, and she had a cousin who had married 
mother’s cousin. It was pleasant to start in at a 
new school with a teacher one knew. 

“There’s the school-house, Margaret,” said 
Miss Susy, as they turned the corner. 

Margie looked up the street eagerly. Every- 
thing had been so strange to her in the few days 
since she had come to live in Dakota that she 
was glad to be on her way to something familiar. 
The school-house at home, down in Illinois, was 
red brick and three stories high. It was old, too, 
for Miss Susy had gone to school there when 
she was a little girl. Miss Susy must be almost 
as old now as Cousin Cyrus, and Cousin Cyrus 


CITIZEN OF SCHOOL WORLD 57 

had gray hair. Surely, all school-houses must be 
made after somewhat the same fashion. 

‘‘It is the large building?” she asked hope- 
fully. That was nearly as large as the school- 
house at home, and if it had been painted red, 
instead of a dingy brown, one could have pre- 
tended that it was brick. 

“No,” said Miss Susy, “that’s the court- 
house.” 

Margie’s heart sank. The only other building 
in sight that could possibly be large enough for a 
school-house looked as if it had begun to be a 
store, and then decided to be a ware-house. It 
was of wood, unpainted, and so narrow that its 
upper story made it seem top-heavy and inse- 
cure. 

“Is that the school-house?” Margie asked, 
with disappointment. 

“Yes,” said Miss Susy, “that’s it. There’ll 
be a better one next year, but when the boom 
came the town grew so fast that we couldn’t wait 
to build a real school-house. We had to take 
this.” 

Margie walked on in silence. It was so unlike 
one’s ideas of going to a new school. How 
could she tell the girls down home about it when 
she wrote those promised letters ? Adams City 
was so much larger than the old home, too. 
Father said it had a population of ten thousand, 
and was certain to be as large as St. Paul in ten 


HEART OF A GIRL 


■58 

years. Father was an editor and knew all about 
such things. But how could a town be wonder- 
ful when the school-house was like that? A 
town with only new planted trees and a brown 
wooden court-house? 

“Our door is down this way,” said Miss Susy. 

It was exactly like the back door of a store, 
and inside, narrow stairs led up to the hall above. 
Margie hung her cloak and hood on a hook in 
the entry, and then Miss Susy showed her to a 
seat. The desk, even, was not like the one at 
home. It had a top that could be raised and 
lowered, and the ink-well was different. The 
only thing familiar about the room was the big 
sheet-iron stove. The walls and ceiling of the 
room were covered with heavy paper, grained to 
imitate oak, and there was only one window. 

Margie sat desolate and homesick while Miss 
Susy wrote the words of a song on the black- 
board — which wasn’t a board at all, or even 
plaster, but merely black paper — and presently 
the boys and girls began to come in. They took 
their seats, and Miss Susy tapped a bell. There 
was not even a bell on the school-house, and 
without a big bell how could one tell whether 
one was tardy or not? 

At the tap of the call bell the boys and girls 
rose and marched into the next room. Margie 
went with Miss Susy. It was a larger room than 
Miss Susy’s, and the boys and girls in it were 


CITIZEN OF SCHOOL WORLD 59 

older. They all sat with folded arms, and Miss 
Susy’s pupils took seats on the front benches. 
Then Miss Susy went to the organ, and the man 
teacher told everybody to stand up to sing. 

The song was “The Star-Spangled Banner.” 
Margie joined in timidly at first. The familiar 
words had a home-like sound. Dakota seemed 
more like Illinois when the same songs were sung 
in both places. She began to have a friendly 
feeling for the boys and girls, and wished she 
knew them. But how could one get acquainted ? 
Down home everybody knew everybody else, and 
after the First Reader class, which she had 
passed through years ago, there were no new 
girls to meet. 

She took her seat again, and listened while 
Miss Susy called the roll. Almost at the end 
was Margaret Carlin. 

Margie hesitated for a moment. Down home 
she had always answered “Present,” but all these 
Dakota boys and girls said “Here.” “Here” 
sounded so abrupt and rude, but she wanted to 
do what was proper in Dakota. 

“Here, Miss Susy,” she answered. 

The boy in front snickered. The girl across 
the aisle stared. What was wrong in say- 
ing “Miss Susy”? Didn’t everybody down 
home call her Miss Susy before she went 
away to Dakota? Miss Susy saw her look of 
distress. 


6o 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“You may call me Miss Halway,” she said. 
“And it will be sufficient to answer ‘Here.’ 
Margaret Carlin,” she added to the school, 
“comes from my old home.” 

The friendliness of her smile relieved Mar- 
gie’s embarrassment. Still it was hard to be 
stared at, and harder still to be a stranger among 
all these girls. She sat with eyes downcast, while 
the B class was called out to recite. Miss Susy 
had told her she would belong to the A class. 
The B class was reading. 

“The Worm of the Still” was the name of the 
piece. Margie had read it herself the year be- 
fore, but she had no idea what it meant. It al- 
ways troubled her, for it seemed to be about a 
terrible worm that gnawed the still, and father 
was such a still man. She began to worry over 
it again when somebody two aisles away said: 

“Ahem I” 

It wasn’t a natural noise. It was the sort of 
noise the girls at home made when they wanted 
to attract one’s attention. Margie looked across 
to the girl who made it. She was a brown-eyed 
girl of about Margie’s own age, eleven, and she 
wore her hair as Margie did, in curls. The lid 
of her desk was up, and behind it, screened from 
Miss Susy’s eyes, the little girl was going 
through curious motions with her hands. Mar- 
gie recognized that she was talking on her 
fingers, but “i” was the only letter she could 


CITIZEN OF SCHOOL WORLD 6 1 


make out. The little girl pointed to her eye for 
that. Margie shook her head. The little girl 
put down the lid of her desk and began to write 
something on a slip of paper. Margie hoped 
she wasn’t writing a note. Down home it was 
considered worse to write notes than even to 
whisper. Margie turned her eyes to her lap 
again, determined to take no part in the pro- 
ceedings. She was not above whispering or even 
writing notes before a mere teacher, but Miss 
Susy was more than that. She was an old friend 
of Cousin Cyrus, and a third cousin to Cousin 
Lucy, his wife. 

The B class was dismissed, and when the girl 
who sat between her and the curly-haired girl 
dropped into her seat, she leaned over and 
dropped a wad of paper into Margie’s lap. 
Margie looked up to see the curly-haired girl 
nodding and pointing. She opened the note. 

‘‘Will you play ‘Pom-pom, pull-away’ at re- 
cess? Your true friend,” it read. The name 
signed to it looked like Jane Megan. 

Margie sent back a nod of consent. She had 
never heard of “Pom-pom, pull-away” before, 
but it would be lovely to play something. The 
two weeks since she left home had seemed too 
long with nobody to play with. There were 
girls in Edwards’ Terrace, but she knew no way 
to make their acquaintance. She felt at once 
that she was going to like Jane Megan. 


62 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Jane caught her hand as they went down the 
stairs at recess. 

“Your name’s Margaret, isn’t it?” she said. 
“Aren’t you ever called Madge?” 

“Sometimes,” said Margaret. “But mostly 
they call me Margie. And aren’t you called 
Jennie? I have a friend down home named 
Jane, and we call her Jinks.” 

“Oh, but my name isn’t Jane,” said her new 
friend. “It’s lone. People mostly think it’s 
Jane when it’s written, but it isn’t. I came from 
Duluth. Where’d you come from?” 

“I came from Gordonsville, down in Illinois,” 
said Margaret. “We’ve just come.” 

“Is your father the Mr. Carlin that’s bought 
the NewsT' asked lone. 

“Yes. My father’s an editor,” said Margie. 

“I’ve seen him,” said lone. “He looked nice.” 

“He is nice. What is your father?” Margie 
asked. 

“He keeps a liv’ry stable,” said lone. 

“That’s lovely!” said Margie. “It must be 
’most as nice as keeping a candy store.” 

“My father does that,” remarked another 
little girl who had approached them. “My 
name’s Lizzie Viola Elwood. My father makes 
ice-cream, too.” 

“Now, you look out, you stuck-up,” said lone. 
“We’re going to play ‘Pom-pom, pull-away.’ If 
you brag about your father’s ice-cream, you can’t 


CITIZEN OF SCHOOL WORLD 63 

play. I guess my mother can make ice-cream, 
too.” 

Lizzie seemed to be about to resent the speech, 
when Margie broke in hastily. 

“I don’t know how to play it,” she said. 

“We’ll show you,” cried the two girls. “Wait 
till I get some more girls,” said Lizzie. 

“Just you count out,” said lone. “Do you 
know how to do that?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Margie, “I know lots of 
counting out things. The one we say most is : 

“Onery, twoery ickery An, 

Fileson, foleson, Nicholas John 
Quevy, quavy, English navy, 

Stinkleum, stankleum buck.” 

“Do you know ‘Eeny, meeny, miny mo?’ ” 
asked lone. 

“Yes,” said Margie, delighted. Dakota girls 
were just like the girls down home. 

“Well, then, you count out, you and me and 
Lizzie and Marie and Janet. We won’t want 
any of the other girls to be it. Hurry up before 
they come.” 

Margie counted out: 

“Eeny, meeny, miny mo. 

Cracky feeny finey fo, 

Upaloocha, popaloocha, 

Rick, hick, bang go.” 


64 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“You’re ‘it,’ ” she said to Lizzie. 

Lizzie ran out into the street, and all the other 
girls stood in a line. 

“Pom-pom, pull-away,” shouted Lizzie. 
“Come or I’ll fetch you away.” 

The girls instantly ran to the other side of 
the street, Lizzie catching at them frantically. 
Marie was the only one on whom she retained 
her hold, so she and Marie were “it” together. 

“Why,” said Margie, as she and lone walked 
into the school again, warned by the call bell and 
Miss Susy at the window that recess was over, 
“that’s just the way we play ‘Fox and Geese’ 
down home. The girl that’s ‘it’ says : ‘How many 
geese have you got?’ and we say: ‘More than 
you can catch,’ and then we run. It’s just the 
same.” 

“And do you play ‘Duck on a Rock’ and 
‘Prisoner’s Base’ and ‘Oats, Beans, Peas’ and 
‘King William’ ?” 

“Yes,” said Margie, delighted, “and ‘Town 
Bair and ‘Here Goes the Blackbird’ and 
‘Chickamy, Chickamy, Craney-crow.’ ” 

“Then I guess it isn’t much different down in 
Illinois from what it is in Duluth,” said lone. 

“I don’t know about Duluth, but it’s lots 
different from Dakota. We have trees and 
hills.” 

“Trees with fruit on them?” asked lone. 

“Lots of them,” said Margie. “We used to 


CITIZEN OF SCHOOL WORLD 65 

have early Junes, and Rambos, and green gages, 
and quinces, and cherries, and heaps of others.” 

“Peaches?” asked lone. 

“Yes.” 

lone drew nearer and spoke lower. They 
were entering the room now. 

“Don’t tell Lizzie I asked you,” she said. 
“She came from Michigan and she brags, but I 
wish you’d tell nje if peaches grow on a vine or 
a tree. I never saw any growing.” 

“They grow on a tree,” said Margie. “It has 
bitter leaves, but sometimes you find gum on the 
tree.” 

“Gum?” asked lone. “Good to eat?” 

Margie nodded. 

“Well,” said lone, “I guess I’ll just tell Lizzie 
that. She said they grew on trees, but I bet she 
don’t know about the leaves being bitter. I’ll 
tell her something, and I guess she’ll wish she 
hadn’t laughed when I said I knew they grew 
on a vine.” 


CHAPTER VI. 


MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER. 

When Margie went to Dakota she was still 
playing with dolls, though Lena Bean’s mother 
had remarked to Mrs. Carlin the year before 
that dolls ought to be forbidden her. She out- 
grew Belinda Betts and the wax dolls and passed 
to the enjoyment of the less material beauties of 
paper dolls — ^whole families of them, cut out of 
Godey^s and Demoresfs, and inscribed on the 
back with splendid names. There were two hun- 
dred paper dolls in her box in Edwards’ Terrace 
when she first met lone Megan, and it was in 
her mind to divide them with her new friend, 
lone was twelve, and the pretty blue frock she 
wore to school was made precisely like the dress 
on Lily Bell Vane, who was one of the nine 
little girls in the Vane family of dolls. lone 
wore a ring, too, that was wished on, and a 
string of gold beads. 

“I have a paper doll with a dress on it like 
yours,” said Margie one day to lone, early In 
their acquaintance. 


66 


MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER 67 

“My land!” said lone, “do you play with 
dolls yet?” 

“No, but — I used to,” said Margie. “Of 
course, I don’t now.” 

She was very glad she had not asked lone to 
share the paper dolls. It would be unpleasant to 
appear babyish when one really wasn’t. In the 
Grammar School one was a big girl, and in the 
Grammar School that year one studied botany. 
It was a primer, but it was a most difficult book 
to learn things from. The only really familiar 
thing in it was the word “Preface,” and, of 
course, one knew what preface stood for. Down 
in No. 5 one could chant: 

“Peter Rice Eats Fishes, Alligators Catch 
Eels,” 

and, beginning at the other end : 

“Eels Catch Alligators, Father Eats Rotten 
Potatoes.” 

The class had learned twelve pages of the 
botany primer before Margie entered it, and she 
had those twelve pages to make up before she 
could start on from the statement: “It is sup- 
posed that the chlorophyll separates the carbon 
from carbonic acid taken from the air, gives back 
the oxygen to the air and supplies the carbon 


68 


HEART OF A GIRL 


(which at the same time combines with the oxy- 
gen and hydrogen of water to form starch) to 
the plant.” 

Even that was nothing at all to what the 
botany primer could do when it tried. It was 
merely an experiment in the Adams City Gram- 
mar School when Adams City itself was in the 
experimental stage. It was soon discarded as 
beyond the comprehension of any but High 
School boys and girls, and it left in Margie’s 
mind only a few large words and one important 
fact about violets. She made use of her knowl- 
edge in a letter to Lena Bean, and she hoped 
Lena would be impressed. 

“There are a great many kinds of flowers here 
that we didn’t use to could find in Gordonsville. 
There are four kinds of violets. White purple 
and yellow down near the river where there are 
trees, and another pale purple kind which grows 
out back of our house on the prairie. The de- 
hiscent fruit of the violet is produced from the 
superior ovary and has three carpels, but the 
violet that grows out back of our house has 
leaves most like dutch man’s breeches leaves. 
You would be pleased to see the new flowers 
which you do not see in Gordonsville.” 

Margie herself was immensely pleased to see 
them — all of them but the blood root. Johnny 
Halderman, who lived next door in Edwards’ 
Terrace, and went to find flowers with her, told 


MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER 69 

her a story about a mandrake, and they agreed 
that the blood root must be something of the 
kind. It bled so realistically when you cut its 
roots. Johnny was a gentle, dreamy boy who 
knew the river woods and where to find every 
flower that grew. He shared Margie’s pleasure 
in the first crocus they found along the railway 
track. He said it made him shiver to think of 
flowers coming out in the cold, and the crocus, 
they thought, looked so comfortable in its furs. 
He brought her the first paint root, which pres- 
ently flamed out in orange patches all over the 
prairie. He found her the tiny white blossom 
he called the star flower, and the stumpy vines 
that looked like slips of the indigo bush at home, 
and Jack-in-the-pulpits, and columbines and 
lady-slippers. Margie liked even the silver plush 
sage, and the weariness of learning about flowers 
from a book that muddled one’s mind did not 
keep her from beginning to love the wonderful 
prairie flowers and the prairie they grew on. 
Johnny did not go to school, but recited his les- 
sons to the rector, who was his uncle. 

His friendship for Margie, therefore, was 
not exposed to the curious eyes of the other 
girls, and Margie liked him the better because 
of that. In Gordonsville she had always had 
one bosom friend, and one only. She and Lena 
Bean had lived in a little world of their own. In 
Adams City she had simply friends. It was the 


70 


HEART OF A GIRL 


custom there to be gregarious. All of those in 
her class were older than herself, and they 
played “Pull-away” only half-heartedly. They 
were beginning to feel themselves almost grown : 
Flo Hewitt wore stays, and Ethel Ellis came to 
school in a sealskin sacque. At recess they 
walked in groups of threes and fours, and they 
talked — to Margie’s amazement, they talked 
about boys. 

“What boy do you like best?” Flo Hewitt 
asked her one day. 

Margie admired the largest boy in the school, 
but in a far-off and impersonal way. He seemed 
to her brave and handsome, like a prince in a 
fairy story. She had not the slightest wish to 
know him, and she would not for worlds have 
admitted her admiration. 

“I don’t like any boy,” she said. 

“Didn’t you ever have a fellow?” Flo asked. 

Margie felt her ears grow hot. Nobody had 
ever taught her that it was not quite nice of Flo 
to talk that way, and she could not define her 
embarrassment, but it was somewhat the feeling 
she had when she dreamed of finding herself in 
church in her nightgown. She shook her head. 

“My I” said Flo. queer. Why, 

every girl has a fellow. Butler Bryan is mine, 
and Dave Harper is Tone’s, and Bert Holman is 
Ethel’s ” and she went on pairing off every- 

body in the Grammar School. 


MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER 7 1 

“What does a boy do that’s your fellow?” 
Margie asked, shamefacedly. 

“Oh, write notes in school, and choose you in 
games, and take you to parties, and kiss you, and 
be sweet on you. You’ll get one after a while.” 

This struck terror to Margie. She remem- 
bered how the boys at home hooted when they 
say a boy walking with a girl. It would be 
dreadful to be hooted at, and it would be quite 
as dreadful to feel that you ought to be hooted 
at, even if you heard no hoots. And to be kissed 
by a boy — standing on the floor would make one 
feel far less uncomfortable and unable to look 
people in the face. She could not understand 
wanting to kiss anybody. You kissed father and 
mother, of course, because you had always done 
it, but mother didn’t make you kiss anybody else. 
When ladies insisted, you could always turn your 
cheek. A great part of the shyness which had 
always been attributed to Margie was due to 
her fear of being kissed by grown people, and 
the whole of it was at all times due to a dread 
of being ridiculous. In the matter of being freed 
from undesired caresses, she had declared her- 
self at a very early age. One of father’s old 
friends had begged her to sit on his knee. 

“I will if mother will,” had been her answer. 

It was absolutely unthinkable, the idea of 
being kissed by a boy, and the openness with 
which the girls referred to their boy admirers 


72 


HEART OF A GIRL 


was amazing to her. She did not say to herself 
that it was not nice, nor that it was silly. She 
could not define her feeling. She was quite con- 
tent to let the girls have fellows if they chose, 
but she wanted none herself. She admired Flo 
and lone. They seemed so sure of themselves, 
and so beautifully unembarrassed, but she had 
no wish to emulate them. 

In Rome, however, it is necessary to conform 
more or less to Roman customs. Between twelve 
and thirteen Margie joined the vast army of 
her sisters wTo trust in men, only to find their 
trust betrayed. In every village and town in the 
country just then there was a roller skating rink. 
No other amusement has ever been so mad a 
craze. The Adams City rink was open every 
evening in the week, and on Saturday after- 
noons. Margie had never been there in the 
evening, and only a few times in the afternoon. 
She owned a pair of skates which old Major 
Winchester had sent her, but admission to the 
rink cost money, and Margie knew that mother 
had not much money to spare. Besides, mother 
did not like to have her go alone, and none of 
the girls she knew lived near her. One day she 
heard the girls talking of a Saturday party at 
the rink. The Grammar School boys were get- 
ting it up, and they were to take the girls. The 
thought of being asked to go did not enter Mar- 
gie’s mind. She had never been to any sort of 


MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER 73 

a party with anyone but John Halderman or her 
father as escort. She did not mind hearing the 
girls talk of it, for going to rink parties was only 
a part of their pairing-off custom. It was not 
until Flo Hewitt said, “Ed Harlan’s going to 
ask you,” that the party became a matter of per- 
sonal interest to her. Ed Harland had always 
seemed to her a pleasant enough boy. She had 
paid little attention to him, but she knew that 
none of the girls claimed him. He was not in 
the slightest degree sentimental, and one could 
go with him without feeling silly. She hoped 
very much that he would ask her, and yet it 
seemed unlikely. Nobody ever had asked her — 
but then she had never wanted to be asked 
before. After school that day, Ed came up 
to her as she was talking to Flo and lone at the 
corner. 

“Will you go to the rink with me Saturday?” 
he asked, bluntly. 

“I will if I can,” Margie answered, trying to 
appear not too eager. “I’ll have to ask my 
mother, but I’m almost sure I can get to go. I’ll 
let you know to-morrow.” 

“All right,” said Ed, turning away awk- 
wardly. 

Margie went home light-footed. It seemed 
too lovely to be asked to go — to join the other 
girls without having any boy you had to like 
best. She burst in on her mother all aglow with 


HEART OF A GIRL 


74 

delight, and Mrs. Carlin required little persuad- 
ing. 

“Well,” she said, “since all the other girls are 
going, and it’s just the school boys and girls to- 
gether, I can’t see any reason for your staying 
away. Of course you may go.” 

Going meant wearing for the first time the 
new cashmere dress, and new dresses were rarer 
now than they used to be. There was only a 
little more sewing to be done on it — no more 
than Mrs. Carlin could easily do in the whole 
day that intervened between this Thursday and 
the wonderful Saturday. She brought out the 
dress at once. Even Betty, who was a young 
lady now, seemed to approve Margie’s going, 
though she was severe on boys and girls, as a 
rule. All father said when he heard it, was : 

“My stars ! but we’re putting on airs.” 

You see, it is a great event to go to a rink 
party. It isn’t at all the same thing as going 
with another girl on an ordinary Saturday. A 
rink party meant music, and Margie had never 
skated to music. She knew she could do it, for 
she skated better than most girls. Not even 
lone could do the Dutch roll so well. She oiled 
and cleaned her skates, and decided to write to 
Lena Bean and tell her all about it. She told 
John Halderman, and then she was sorry she 
had spoken. John was not strong enough to 
skate, and she thought he looked wistful. It 


MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER 7 5^ 

must be so dreadful not to be able to skate when 
everybody else did. She whistled, or hissed 
rather, a tune through her teeth as she walked 
to school next morning. At one corner she met 
lone. 

“Em going,” she said. 

“I’m awfully glad,” said lone. “We’ll have 
a gorgeous time.” 

They met Flo at the school-house comer. Flo 
was glad, too, to hear the news. Ed and Ethel 
Ellis were standing near the steps as they came 
up. 

“I can go,” called Margie. 

Ed looked down, in embarrassment. 

“Well, you see,” he said, huskily, “after I 
asked you I thought I’d rather take Ethel, and 
she didn’t have to ask her mother, so I’m going 
to take her.” 

Margie went on into the school-house. She 
was a very long time hanging up her jacket and 
hat. 

“Wasn’t that mean of Ed !” said lone. “I’m 
just as sorry ” 

The eyes of Flo and lone flayed Margie. 

“I’ve — I’ve forgotten something,” she said. 
“I’ll have to go home and get it.” 

She faced them. 

“I don’t care a bit,” she said, taking down her 
hat and jacket. 

The one necessity now was to hide before she 


HEART OF A GIRL 


76 

gave way. She hurried along the street holding 
her mind, as she might have held her breath. 
Not home, no, mother was there sewing on the 
new dress. Somewhere alone. She could feel 
her lips trembling. She began to run. Down 
across the little bridge over the coulee into 
Island Park, and on and on till the trees shut out 
all the world. 

It was almost dark when Margie started for 
home. She had prayed God to kill her, and 
God had not answered. She had sobbed till 
sheer exhaustion had silenced her. All day long 
she had fought for a way out of the depths, and 
she was worn out, not comforted. There seemed 
no possible way out. She had been humiliated 
before all her world. The imagined pity of the 
girls lashed her bare soul. She went over and 
over the thing, trying for some shred of comfort 
to cling to. Everybody would have to know. 
Mother and father and Betty and all the school. 
Mother, when she could face her, would man- 
age so that father and Betty would not speak of 
it, but they would all try to make up to her for 
it. They would feel sorry. And the girls — 
nothing could keep them from speaking of it. 
They would say they were sorry, and they would 
look at her. 

She went slowly toward home. If only there 
were nobody but mother in the world, how much 
easier living would be. If she and mother could 


MEN WERE DECEIVERS EVER 77 

only go away — back to Gordonsville. Oh, Gor- 
donsville! An ache for home, for the soil she 
sprang from, filled her. Just to be where no- 
body knew about Ed. She wished she had said 
something mean to him. She felt very tired. 
Perhaps, now that she could think of it without 
crying, mother would help her to make it seem 
better. Perhaps mother would not make her go 
to school again. If she had only slapped Ed. 
He deserved slapping. If she had only been 
able to act as if she didn’t care. Perhaps she 
could manage to act that way before Monday — 
but acting wouldn’t help. 

She thought of how it would be when she 
reached home. If mother should be angry with 
her for staying out all day, it would be a com- 
fort. Perhaps mother would punish her by 
making her stay away from the rink. That 
would make it so much easier about father and 
Betty. Perhaps, then, mother wouldn’t have to 
know — but mother would know. Lights were 
twinkling in windows here and there. Margie 
shivered. It was October, and the day had been 
unusually warm, but the dusk was chilly. Mar- 
gie walked faster. She had decided now to tell 
mother. Her misery had dulled itself. She felt 
hungry and weak. She came along the street at 
the side of her home, and began to climb the 
fence. Her foot slipped and she plunged head- 
long over, flinging out one arm. All her weight 


HEART OF A GIRL 


78 

fell on it, and she felt the bone snap. There 
•was a little time before she cried out, and in that 
time she said to herself ; 

“I’m glad. I’m glad. I’m glad.” 


CHAPTER VIL 


WHEN THE WORM TURNED. 

At Margie’s age a broken arm is not a mat- 
ter for any deep regret. Even when you hit 
it a smart rap as she did, the first day the doctor 
takes the splint off, and have it wrapped up again 
for another while, the only real disadvantage 
about it is that people cut your beefsteak into 
bits that are either too large or too small; the 
only real discomfort, the necessity of sleeping all 
night on the same side. A broken arm is an 
event and makes you a personage. The girls 
from school come to see you and look at you with 
awed imagination. You know that everybody 
is talking about you, and you enjoy it. You 
enjoy walking downtown. Everybody stares at 
your sling, and you act as cool and unconcerned 
as a hero home from the war. It is a thrilling 
and romantic situation. You like to tell the girls 
all about it. When you say that you picked your- 
self up and walked into the house, they fairly 
gasp with admiration of your heroism. 

“Didn’t it hurt awfully?” lone asks. 

79 


8o 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“I didn’t mind it,” you say, and lone tells that 
at school. The biggest boy says, “Golly, she’s 
got grit,” and all the other boys begin to brag 
of the things that happened to them and how 
they acted. But only Bert Butler has ever had 
his arm broken, and he was knocked senseless. 
It becomes a school tradition that you picked 
yourself up and walked into the house with your 
arm broken. It is not incumbent on you to ex- 
plain that it really didn’t hurt till somebody 
touched it. T he girls all know that the doctor 
gave you ether, but they cannot know what a de- 
lightful experience ether was. Flo says the idea 
of it would scare her to death, but it didn’t scare 
you, because you didn’t want the arm to hurt 
when the doctor set it. 

It had a choky, throat-burning smell at first, 
and you shut your eyes. Everything was so still, 
but you heard the clock ticking. You began to 
whizz off then — clear off the world, into a place 
where everything was whizzy. You opened 
your eyes to say you weren’t gone yet, and then 
you whizzed off and off again. Noises like en- 
gines went on about you, and you seemed to be 
part of the noise. Far, far away, down a wide 
hall as long as the world, you remembered that 
a little girl had been hurt. They were setting 
her arm, but it wasn’t your arm, and the little 
girl wasn’t you. You weren’t anybody, and it 
was a delightful sensation to feel that. You 


WHEN THE WORM TURNED 8 1 


weren’t anybody enough to be whizzed. You 
were a part of the whizz itself. Then you 
opened your eyes and felt dizzy. There was the 
doctor just finishing the bandaging. He bent 
your arm across you and put it into a sling. It 
seemed as if he were making you a present of it, 
and you said, feeling very gay: 

“Can I have it to keep?” 

“She isn’t quite awake yet,” you heard the 
doctor say, “but she’ll be all right now.” 

And everybody was so kind and good to you, 
and it was lovely to have them feel sorry. You 
were the heroine of the occasion, and a very 
great occasion it was. You ceased to think of 
Ed Harlan. He was only a rude little boy, and 
you wanted to forgive your enemies, anyway. 
It was so easy to feel that way when you could 
look down from such a high seat in the syna- 
gogue. 

Johnny Halderman came over and played 
cassino with you, and Mrs. Halderman sent you 
jelly. Father brought you a bag of candy, and 
mother and Betty waited on you hand and foot. 
Betty helped you with your lessons, and the girls 
told you just what they were studying. You 
didn’t want to fall behind, because your class 
would be promoted at Christmas and go into the 
new school-house. 

You — but it is Margie we are talking of. 
Betty, who was five years her senior, had been 


82 


HEART OF A GIRL 


obliged to give up school because of her eyes. 
It was a great disappointment for Betty, because 
she hoped to be a teacher, and in less than a 
year she would have been ready for college. She 
was forbidden to read, but Margie could read 
to her, and Margie liked to do it. Some of the 
times Margie read to her sister she never quite 
forgot. There was history, and literature, and 
geometry. Betty would set down a problem 
that Margie read out, and when father came 
home, he looked it over. Margie felt that she 
was almost studying geometry, too. They tried 
a little Latin together, and Latin immediately 
became a wonderful thing to Margie. She 
begged Betty to teach it to her. Betty thought 
that Latin could not possibly appeal to her, but 
she consented to mark in the grammar the things 
that were to be learned first. It was all so easy 
— nothing that required thought. Nothing puz- 
zling like arithmetic. Margie learned to chant 
Stella, Stella, and puer, pueri, and iirhs, urhis, 
through all their cases. She learned two tenses 
of amo, and she learned the ablative prep- 
ositions. Betty used the English pronuncia- 
tion, and in that the prepositions fitted in a 
rhyme : 


‘A, ab, absque, de, 

Sine, tenus, pro and prae. 
Coram, cum, ex and e.” 


WHEN THE WORM TURNED 83 

Margie found a practical use for her Latin. 
When she went back to school she counted out 
with the prepositions which govern the ablative. 

The new school-house, finer by far than the 
old Gordonsville school, was finished that fall. 
The Grammar School moved into it at Christ- 
mas, and Margie went with them. They sat all 
together now in one very large room, and the 
man teacher, whose name was Xerxes Zenophon 
Hunt, heard classes in arithmetic and spelling 
there. One sat there, too, to study, going to the 
assistant teachers in the rooms across the hall for 
most lessons. Mr. Hunt was a hunchback. He 
had a violent temper and was a strict dis- 
ciplinarian, but, in spite of these things, the boys 
liked him. There was a certain spirit of com- 
radeship between him and them. He aroused 
their interest in politics, and encouraged them to 
debate. He liked to be asked questions by them, 
and would listen readily to any new point of 
view. The girls were all afraid of him, and 
Margie lived in terror of his sarcastic tongue. 
Infractions of his rules he punished with tor- 
tures. He made one girl who whispered stand 
on the floor for an hour, holding a spelling book 
in her teeth. A boy who threw paper wads en- 
dured the agony of sitting on the floor with his 
feet on the raised platform. Mr. Hunt had no 
mercy on the dull. If you failed in an arithmetic 
example, you had to stand on the floor, and he 


HEART OF A GIRL 


84 

drew about your feet a circle in chalk so that 
you could not move without stepping on it. 
There you stood in one position till you solved 
the problem. Only once was Margie obliged to 
stand there. She had misunderstood the length 
of the lesson and had not studied the example 
he gave her. 

“I didn’t study that far,” she explained, when 
he ordered her to solve it at the blackboard. 

“Oh, you didn’t, eh?” Mr. Hunt snarled. 
“Why not?” 

“I didn’t know it was the lesson.” 

“Oh, didn’t know it was the lesson, didn’t 
know,” he said. “And I suppose you think that’s 
an excuse?” 

Margie flushed. 

“I think I can do it, though,” she said. 

“Oh, you do, do you?” Mr. Hunt sneered. 
“You conceive your mathematical attainments 
to be so lofty that it is unnecessary for you to 
study. You think you can do it. Well, I don’t. 
Stand on the floor there and study it. Perhaps 
after this you’ll condescend to study the lessons 
I give out.” 

Margie walked down the aisle and took her 
stand. She had always imagined that if she were 
obliged to stand on the floor she would be so 
humiliated that she would cry, as some of the 
girls did. Now she found herself without the 
slightest symptom of tears. She shook a little, 



• V 



“I’m still studying it,” she said. 





WHEN THE WORM TURNED 8 5 

for she had never been so angry before in all her 
life. Her excuse had been respectfully given 
and she had a right to expect that it would be 
accepted. Mr. Hunt might mark her down for 
it, and he had even the right to make her stand 
on the floor if she missed, but he had no right to 
refuse to let her try the example. He had no 
right, either, to speak as he did. Only very 
underbred people said insulting things to those 
who couldn’t answer back. Mr. Hunt seemed 
exactly like the woman down in Gordonsville 
who had insulted Black Sam. Vulgar was the 
word Margie called him to herself. Cry? Not 
if she stood on the floor a thousand years. She 
broke through the respect she had always had 
for a teacher, and out of her deep contempt and 
her anger sprang a cool insolence. At the end 
of the lesson Mr. Hunt said to her in a some- 
what milder manner: 

“Do you know the example now?” 

She faced him calmly. 

“I am still studying it,” she said. 

“Have you worked it?” he demanded. 

“Oh, did you want me to work it? You didn’t 
tell me that,” she said. “You told me to study 
it.” 

Mr. Hunt wheeled on her furiously. 

“You’re impertinent,” he shouted. “Go to 
your seat, and stay after school.” 

Margie went to her seat. Her blood was up, 


86 


HEART OF A GIRL 


and she fairly yearned for another encounter 
with Mr. Hunt. The chance for it came within 
the hour. As she sat over her geography she 
heard a significant cough from somewhere near, 
and as she raised her head, a folded note 
dropped over her shoulder. She did not know 
who sent it, and she had no chance to read it, for 
almost the instant her fingers closed on it Mr. 
Hunt called out from his desk: 

“What have you there?” he demanded. 

“A note, Mr. Hunt,” said Margie. 

“Bring it to me.” 

Margie had no idea who had written the note, 
nor what was in it. It might have come from 
any one of a half-dozen near her, but Mr. Hunt 
woud identify the writer and then there would 
be trouble. If there were anything silly in it, 
he would read it out. 

“Bring it here !” shouted Mr. Hunt. 

The folded paper was the merest scrap. 
Margie dipped it deliberately into the open ink- 
well on her desk, and then carried it to Mr. 
,Hunt. For an instant she thought he meant to 
strike her, but she had lashed herself into such 
a fury that she did not care what happened. The 
muscles in Mr. Hunt’s jaws stood out, but he 
said nothing. She walked back to her seat and 
resumed her geography study. 

The school filed out at four o’clock and left 
her there. Mr. Hunt limped to the door and 


WHEN THE WORM TURNED 87 

watched the boys down the stairs. He was 
chewing a bit of straw, as he always did when 
he was angry. He came back presently, and 
closed the door behind him. For a long while 
he limped up and down the clear space near his 
desk. Then he beckoned to Margie. She went 
forward. 

“We’ll hear your side first,” he said. 

Margie, taken aback, felt the tears rush to 
her eyes. 

“Oh, Mr. Hunt,” she said, “I’m so sorry. I 
was never bad in school before in all my life, 
but I didn’t think you ought to have spoken the 
way you did. It wasn’t fair.” 

Mr. Hunt said nothing. 

“And the note,” she went on, unsteadily, “you 
would have read it right out.” 

“It’s against the rules to write notes,” Mr. 
Hunt said almost gently. 

“I know, but I didn’t write it.” 

“Who did?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Would you tell if you did know?” he asked. 

Margie made small pretense of altruism. 

“Not unless it was somebody I was mad at,” 
she said. 

Mr. Hunt chewed his straw reflectively. 

“Are you mad at me?” he asked. 

“Not now,” she said. 

Mr. Hunt did not speak for a little time. 


88 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“You may go,” he said. Margie looked back 
at him from the door. How terrible it must be 
to be deformed like that ! Ed Harlan had calle'd 
him hump-backed to his face once. And mother 
said he must suffer a great deal. Perhaps he 
couldn’t help being mean at times. If you 
weren’t afraid of him, you would be sorry for 
him. 

“Good-bye, Mr. Hunt,” she called out, with 
a friendly nod. 

“Good-bye, my little friend,” he answered. 


CHAPTER VIIL 


THE WEAKNESS OF GOLD. 

Dakota was not long in teaching Margie 
what an important factor money is in the world. 
In Gordonsville, rich and poor were words she 
associated with city people in stories. They had 
no bearing on life as she knew it. The Carlins 
had always lived simply, and Margie had no 
wishes unfulfilled because of a lack of money. 
She was fond of pretty frocks, and nothing she 
wore ever seemed to her in any way open to 
criticism. Her attention had never been called 
to the matter of dress by the consciousness of 
being better dressed than other girls or not so 
well dressed as they were. Mrs. Carlin never 
spoke of the cost of anything before her. She 
knew that when her mother went shopping she 
carried no purse. The shopkeepers were told 
merely to charge this or that to W. M. Carlin. 
And Freda Wagenhals came to help mother sew. 

When shoes and frocks wore out, mother 
bought others. One was never told to be careful 
of one’s dress. There was never any lack of 
89 


90 


HEART OF A GIRL 


anything, so far as Margie knew. Home was 
not so large a house as many another in the 
neighborhood, but it had never occurred to her 
to think about that. It was a place to which 
everybody came. Mother could tell such de- 
lightful stories. Every Friday evening in the 
winter there was a “gathering.” The boys and 
girls in the neighborhood liked to come to hear 
mother’s stories, or to play games. There were 
nuts and popcorn and apples, and if anyone went 
to the cellar after them, in the midst of a story, 
mother wouldn’t tell another word till he came 
back. Then, there were a great many people, 
too, who came to visit. Sometimes mother had 
whist parties, and very often she put on a lovely 
gray silk gown and went to musicales, or to the 
Hunters’ Ball at the hotel. Major Winchester 
drove very beautiful horses, but they suggested 
to Margie no contrast with Old Sam and the 
spring wagon in which the Carlins went every- 
where. Nobody had more books and magazines 
than father, and you could read any of them you 
chose. Margie had never been forbidden to 
read but one book. That was “Lena Rivers.” 
She read it up in the hayloft, and could not 
understand why mother objected to it. It was 
not half so interesting as “Henry Esmond,” 
though in Esmond, as in all other grown-up 
books, there was a great deal you had to skip 
because it was dull. Books, Margie understood 


THE WEAKNESS OF GOLD 


91 


to be essential things. Editors always had them, 
just as editors always had tickets to the circus 
and to the Swiss Bell Ringers and to the fair. 
Editors could ride on railroads, too. Mother 
often went to St. Louis, and Margie herself had 
been to Chicago twice before she was ten. In 
Gordonsville, too, one was always In things. 
When the ladies got up any entertainment for 
the benefit of the library, or for the church, It 
was a matter of course that one would be In It. 
None of these things had to do with money. 
Margie had never possessed more than a dollar 
at a time in her life. That was at Christmas, 
and you could buy a great deal with It. At 
Fourth of July you had two bits. This bought 
two bunches of fire-crackers and a bag of tor- 
pedoes, and, fired one at a time, these lasted all 
morning. In the afternoon there was a picnic. 
Margie had never had spending money as a reg- 
ular thing. Five cents now and then, you could 
have if you asked father. She did not like soda 
water nor chewing gum, and she had no very 
great fondness for candy. Her wants did not 
require money. 

She was conscious of degrees of social Im- 
portance, but these, again, did not depend on 
money. Belonging to a first family meant to her 
having a great-grandfather who had been one 
of the first settlers. Good blood and family were 
farnill^r terms to her, and It was a matter of 


92 


HEART OF A GIRL 


course with her that everybody in Gordonsville 
who mattered at all was kin to her. Belonging 
to a family meant, beside having a great many 
people you called “cousin,” the possession of 
certain traits. Mrs. Carlin was a Gordon. 
There was the Gordon temper, and the Gordon 
manner. Mother believed in self-control, but 
when anything vexed Cousin Cyrus, he ripped 
and tore. At other times, he had the Gordon 
manner, which was, indeed, charming. Families 
all came in the first place from Kentucky. Ken- 
tuckians were entirely different from Yankees. 
It was an astonishment to Margie to learn that 
father had once been a Yankee, and Grand- 
mother Carlin stamped in Margie’s mind the 
type of all Yankees. They did not have pleasant, 
easy manners like the Gordons, but Grand- 
mother had an idea of family, too. Her idea 
didn’t excuse you for ripping and tearing, as 
being a Gordon did. It made you remember 
what things a gentlewoman might do, and what 
she might not do. Gentlewomen, Grandmother 
Carlin said, never allowed their emotions to mas- 
ter them. Gentlewomen never betrayed enjoy- 
ment of what they ate. 

Yankees, to Margie, were not at all comfort- 
able people. Grandmother had stiff chairs 
which had belonged to her great-grandfather, 
who had been President of Harvard. Only 
Yankees could be comfortable in them. 


THE WEAKNESS OF GOLD 


93 


Grandmother could be entertaining when she 
chose to tell about the dinner party her mother 
gave to Lafayette, or about dining with Presi- 
dent Madison, who ate with a silver fork, 
which Mrs. Madison said was an odd habit 
he had acquired in Paris. Most times Grand- 
mother was not pleasant. You could not sit 
in her presence unless she gave you permission, 
and it would never have occurred to you to 
kiss her. She used odd words, too. She called a 
bucket a pail, and a skillet a spider, and a bit a 
shilling, and had a horror of slang. She was un- 
comfortable about Sundays, too, and when she 
prayed she spoke of herself as chiefest among 
sinners, and you wondered what frightful thing 
she had done, till you asked mother, and mother 
said it was just an expression. Visits to Grand- 
mother were not pleasant, but visits to the Gor- 
don kin were delightful. Margie admired her 
family very much. Mother and Cousin Betty 
seemed to her the most elegant ladies in town. 
They sailed along so impressively when they 
walked, and gentlemen bowed so low to them. 
They laughed so fascinatingly, and held their 
hands so daintily. They were not just women 
like Lena Bean’s mother and Mrs. Taylor. 
They were Gordons. Margie knew that there 
had never been a Gordon man whose courage 
had been questioned, and it was not safe to doubt 
a Gordon’s word, .Whatever of romance she 


94 


HEART OF A GIRL 


understood was bound up in her idea of her 
family. They were all persons of importance, 
and just what this meant she did not realize till 
Dakota taught her. 

There were no families in Dakota. Nobody 
had kin out there, and one heard a great deal 
said of money. Ethel Ellis’s father was rich. 
She lived in a large house in what lone said was 
the fashionable street, and she wore a great deal 
of jewelry. Most of the girls wore more than 
Margie did. It was not long before she began 
to feel that they were better dressed. lone had 
such pretty frocks. For the first time in her life 
Margie was envious. For the first time, too, she 
came to know that mother could not buy her 
frocks like lone’s. Mr. Carlin’s business ven- 
ture was not a success. Margie was conscious 
of a growing sense of discomfort. Home was a 
pleasant place, but wearing one’s shoes out was 
a serious matter. Mother looked distressed 
about it, and sometimes the shoes were very 
shabby, indeed, before one had another pair. 
Mother never went anywhere now. Her gray 
silk had been made over for Betty to wear to a 
party. The old feeling of plenty was gone. 
Money was never discussed before Margie, but 
she felt the lack of it. The other girls had so 
many more Christmas presents to tell about. 
They wore wider hair ribbons, and they were in 
more things. At thirteen these things cut deep. 


THE WEAKNESS OF GOLD 9 5 

Margie learned to shut her eyes to things, and to 
keep silent. To speak to mother of the frocks 
she wanted made doing without them seem so 
much more dreadful. It was pleasanter to say 
nothing, and to dream day-dreams of the time 
when she could have prettier frocks than lone, 
and ever so many pairs of shoes, without any 
patches. 

At this time she had no bosom friend. It 
was impossible to have a real chum when you 
had to pretend so much — evade so much. It 
hurt her to hear Betty speak of their poverty. 
Margie would not admit it to herself. She could 
not look things in the face as Betty did. Betty 
was uncompromisingly truthful, and Margie was 
a dreamer. Mother, too, skimmed over things. 
There was one dreadful time when Margie had 
but one suit of underflannels. They were always 
freshly laundered when she woke on Sunday 
morning. Mother had washed and dried them 
over night, but Margie would not speak of this, 
nor think of it. It seemed a thing one must con- 
ceal. It was entirely out of keeping with the 
pleasant dinner-table, where there was always 
something very good to eat, and a flower or a 
growing plant in the center of the table. Pov- 
erty meant having not enough to eat. It meant 
an untidy-looking mother and discussions about 
money. One suit of underflannels was a different 
thing. It was merely an accident, like other un- 


HEART OF A GIRL 


96 

pleasant things one ignored. And if one was 
not in many things, that was an accident, too. 
The few people mother did know were all inter- 
esting, and mother still had the Gordon manner. 

The winter Margie was thirteen was the hard- 
est in all the Carlins’ experience. The boom had 
gone, and unfortunate investments had swal- 
lowed up all Mr. Carlin possessed. It was a bit- 
terly cold winter. More than once the water 
froze on Margie’s curls on the way to school. 
Twice her ears were frozen. Forty and fifty 
degrees below zero were not uncommon that 
year. Margie wore her light jacket far into the 
winter. Her heavy cloak she had worn the win- 
ter before, and even then it had been an old one 
of Betty’s. It was so worn and shabby that 
Margie pretended she did not need it. She kept 
on dreaming that something would happen so 
that she could have an ulster like lone’s. lone 
had everything. Margie’s prayer was always: 
“Oh God, please let things be better. Please let 
things be better.” There came a day when the 
light jacket was no longer warm enough. 

“You must wear your heavy cloak to-day, 
honey,” her mother said. 

“Oh, mother, it does look so shabby,” said 
Margie. 

Mrs. Carlin put her arms about her. 

“I know,” she said; “I know, but I can’t get 
you anything else just now.” 


THE WEAKNESS OF GOLD 97 

Her voice broke a little. The horror Margie 
had learned to dread, the open acknowledgment 
of poverty, was very near. Margie put on the 
old cloak. With her knitted scarf tied about her 
neck, so that the ends dangled in front over the 
worn buttonholes, it did not look quite so shabby. 
And it was warm. Perhaps, anyway, something 
would happen so she need not wear it all winter. 
Her hook in the cloak-room was in the far cor- 
ner, too, and that helped. Nobody would be 
likely to notice the cloak, and she could always 
put the scarf on before she came out of the cloak- 
room. “Wha’s there for honest poverty that 
hangs his head and a’ that,” had never com- 
forted her. A man might be a man for a’ that, 
but a girl can’t be a girl if she has to be the shab- 
biest of her set. It would be different if one 
were a Norwegian like the two little Olsen girls. 
They had never had pretty clothes, and they did 
not mind wearing a dress that was too short to 
parties, because they never went to parties. 

Margie had been to Ethel Ellis’s party, which 
was the most elaborate Adams City had ever 
seen. Nothing in the world but lack of money 
kept her from being a leader among the girls, 
and she knew it. But she could not be at her 
best in a shabby dress. She had read about girls 
in books who didn’t feel as she did, but in books 
things always turned out well in the end, and she 
did not see any end in her case. If one was not 


HEART OF A GIRL 


98 

born an Olsen, one must have money. Every- 
body of one’s kind did have it. The things she 
wanted were never better than lone’s. They 
were simply like lone’s. She had visited lone a 
few times, and she felt that lone’s mother was 
not quite a gentlewoman. She was more like 
Mrs. Taylor down home, and she said “I seen,” 
but she was a very pleasant, lovable woman. 
Margie had never seen lone’s father. The day 
of the old cloak was lone’s birthday, and she was 
wearing a new watch. Margie did not envy her 
this especially. She was too glad to find that 
neither lone nor Flo Hewitt seemed to notice 
the old cloak, to think of anything else. In 
school, anyway, being head of the class and 
never scolded by Mr. Hunt, made up for a great 
deal. 

This day Mr. Hunt had something new for 
them all to do. Each pupil was to fill out the 
blanks in a printed sheet. Margie did not know 
to what use the sheets were to be put, but filling 
in the blank spaces was easy. At the top of the 
sheet was “Name of Pupil.” Below that were 
other spaces for “Place and Date of Birth,” 
“Birthplace and Occupation of Father,” “Birth- 
place of Mother,” and similar questions about 
grandparents, with the addition, “If Known.” 
Margie could have written down the names of 
generations farther back than that, for the his- 
tory of her family had always interested her, 


THE WEAKNESS OF GOLD 


99 

and she went at once to work. Father, of course, 
was born in Concord, where all the Carlins be- 
longed, and father was an editor. Mother had 
been born in Gordonsville, where the Gordons 
belonged. Grandfather Carlin was a Concord 
man, too, and a minister. Grandfather Gordon 
was a Kentuckian, and a preacher. She was just 
filling in the last line when an odd little noise 
from lone across the aisle startled her. lone 
had both arms on her desk, and her face hidden 
against them. Her body was shaking with sobs. 
Her curls had fallen forward on each side of her 
neck, and the pretty gold beads showed. Her 
feet were drawn up under her, and the hand with 
the turquoise ring on it was shut tight. What 
could have happened to lone? The girls went 
out presently for recess, but lone still sat at her 
desk, with her face hidden. 

“Did Mr. Hunt say something to her?” Mar- 
gie asked of Flo Hewitt. 

“No,” Flo answered; “she’s crying because 
she has to tell what her father does.” 

“Why, he keeps a livery stable,” said Margie. 

“That was when he first came,” Flo ex- 
plained. “Now he is bartender at the Coli- 
seum.” 

The Coliseum was a variety theatre, of which 
one spoke with bated breath. It was a more 
wicked place than one could quite understand. 
Ladies never walked in that street nor in the 


LOfC, 


lOO 


HEART OF A GIRL 


streets near it. It was a part of the evil of the 
world of which Margie was coming to under- 
stand vague hints. The joy of the Pharisee filled 
her. How splendid it was to have a father of 
whom one was proud. A barkeeper for a 
father! She had never seen a barkeeper, but 
she knew being one meant unspeakable degra- 
dation. She put on the old cloak and went out 
with the scarf flung over her shoulder. What 
did a shabby cloak matter when you were the 
only girl in school whose father was an editor? 

After a little, her mind went back to lone. 
How was lone going to manage to face the girls 
again? What was there she could do? Margie 
went back upstairs into the school-room again, 
lone was still at her desk, but she was not shak- 
ing now. The openness of her shame seemed 
terrible to Margie. Her own instinct to conceal 
unpleasant things was so strong. There was 
something sickening about the hopelessness of 
lone’s situation. It was like seeing Mr. Hunt 
whip one of the boys. It was a thing one could 
not bear to look at. She wanted to pretend she 
had not noticed it. She wanted to help cover it 
up. She leaned across the aisle and touched lone. 

“Does your tooth ache very bad?” she asked. 

lone’s arms relaxed a little. She raised her 
head long enough to nod. 

“I’ll ask Mr. Hunt if you can go home,” Mar- 
gie said. 


THE WEAKNESS OF GOLD loi 


It was easy to ask Mr. Hunt. He and Margie 
were friends in those days. He accepted the 
pretense without question. Margie and lone 
walked to the cloak-room together. Neither of 
them spoke till lone had put on her ulster. Then 
lone said: 

“Will you tell the girls I had to go home be- 
cause I had an awful toothache? That’s what 
made me cry.” 

Margie merely nodded. She was glad to have 
lone go away. She looked at lone’s smart ulster, 
and at her own shabby cloak. Deliberately she 
called to her mind all the unpleasant things in 
her own life which she had before evaded. She 
looked them all square in the face. It seemed 
almost a luxury to do it, to marshal them all 
in array and then set over against them the facts 
that made them nothing. lone had a pretty 
ulster, and her father was a bartender. Margie 
had a shabby cloak, but her father was an editor. 


CHAPTER IX. 


JULIA. 

Margie was nearly fourteen before she found 
a successor to Lena Bean, and the successor was 
something more to her than Lena Bean had ever 
been. In the last year of Lena Bean’s chum- 
ship, Margie had been the leader. Toward her 
new friend, Julia Weston, her attitude was alto- 
gether that of a devotee. Julia was her ideal. 

The Grammar School was divided that year, 
and Margie was sent to the new North Side 
school, nearer her home. A few of the girls there 
she knew already. They were different in some 
way from the South Side girls. None of them 
was rich like Ethel Ellis, and most of them liked 
to be helped with their lessons. The question of 
money was of less importance now to Margie. 
Things were better with father. He added to 
his income by editing the Dakota supplement of 
a city paper. Margie was plainly dressed, but 
no longer shabby. She liked her new teacher, 
Miss Starr, and she was very friendly with 
Minnie Stuart and Jennie Hatch — friendly, that 
is, in a mild way. She was not on confidential 
102 



Toward her new friend her attitude was altogether that of devotee, 


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JULIA 103 

terms with either of them, and felt that they ad- 
mired her, even if they did think her queer, more 
than she admired them. Then one day Julia 
Weston came to school. Julia was sixteen, and 
had never been to school before. She was a 
Canadian by birth, and her father owned one of 
the big wheat farms miles to the north of Adams 
City. Julia had been educated by a governess. 

At first sight Margie thought that Julia looked 
as she herself would have looked if she had been 
prettier. Julia seemed in some way a realization 
of her day-dreams of herself. From the very 
first, Julia was delightful. She had the most 
charming and self-possessed manner. At recess 
on the first day she spoke to Margie and told all 
about herself. She was like the people in Gor- 
donsville who belonged to families. She wanted 
to know at once who everybody in the class was, 
where they all came from and what their fathers 
did for their livings. These things mattered to 
Julia. She talked like a young lady and she was 
altogether charming. She played the piano well, 
and wrote a fashionable hand, but she was simple 
and unaffected to a degree. She was not clever, 
and from the beginning of their friendship Mar- 
gie did her lessons for her. In all her life Mar- 
gie never knew another person whom she ad- 
mired so uncritically as she did Julia. Even 
Julia’s way of walking a bit pigeon-toed was 
lovely. Margie prostrated herself before her 


4 


104 HEART OF A GIRL 

idol. Julia accepted her devotion. She was too 
gentle to be exacting, too sweet-tempered to 
make demands. She admired Margie’s clever- 
ness about books, and thought Margie had so 
much character. 

Margie never put into words her love for 
Julia. She lived it. Miss Starr was an inspiring 
teacher. Margie loved to write. Miss Starr 
encouraged her. It was a joy to Margie to have 
a composition to write. Minnie and Jennie de- 
tested it. Julia declared she simply could not 
write. Margie had written compositions for 
Jennie and Minnie, but they were the sort one 
could dash off in an evening. When it came 
Julia’s turn to read a composition, Margie spent 
two whole days writing one for her. Julia did 
not care what it was about, and when Margie 
suggested “Novels and Novel Reading” as a 
title, Julia agreed readily enough. 

“Don’t make it too long,” she said, “and write 
it plain so I can copy it.” 

Margie put her whole soul into it. It seemed 
to her that it was written extremely well. The 
first paragraph led off grandly : 

“In this, the Nineteenth century, the subject 
of novels and novel reading has become one that 
must be thought of and settled by every one, for 
the current literature of the day consists almost 
entirely of novels. Novels have been called en- 


JULIA 105 

lightening and refining, and they have been 
called the very reverse, and if read to excess 
certainly do more harm than good. They should 
be read in moderation. Good reading is in- 
structive, interesting and harmless.” 

Margie had read a great many books, and 
skimmed through more. She mentioned the 
names of all the great books she could remember, 
and spoke with high disdain of persons who 
chose to read trash. She classed French litera- 
ture as “not of the highest order of morality, 
though Victor Hugo has written some celebrated 
novels.” She spoke of the books which had 
accomplished great things for one cause or an- 
other — “Nicholas Nickleby” and “Oliver 
Twist,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Ramona,” 
“The Bread Winners,” “A Fool’s Errand.” 
“Of all the books written on the Mormon ques- 
tion,” she said, “none have done more than call 
public attention to this enormous evil.” She 
passed then to authors whose books had hap- 
pened to appeal to her. “Synove Solbaken,” 
she said, “made the reputation of Bjorne 
Bjornsterne.” Toward the end she expressed a 
conviction that within the next fifty years the 
reign of the dime novel would be over, and “we 
shall have a better class of people, with no time 
wasted in foolish reading.” 

For herself, she had read one Old Sleuth 


io6 HEART OF A GIRL 

story and enjoyed it immensely, almost as much, 
in fact, as “The Reveries of a Bachelor” and 
“Tom Sawyer,” but one does not express one’s 
personal taste in a composition. Compositions, 
when you are not trying to make them funny, 
must be correct in tone. The composition about 
the seasons, in which one led off by saying : “The 
principal seasons are salt, pepper, mustard, and 
vinegar. Besides these, there are spring, sum- 
mer, autumn, and winter, January thaw, Chi- 
nooks and Thomson’s seasons,” was a funny one. 
Minnie read it and laughed all the way through. 
Julia’s composition must not be funny, it must 
be serious. Julia never read anything at all, and 
didn’t understand why people wasted time on 
books, and the composition pleased her very 
much, indeed. She copied it in her beautiful, 
stylish hand, and read it on a Friday afternoon 
when there were visitors. Only a few of the 
words made her hesitate. It was a great day for 
Margie. After school Miss Starr beckoned to 
her and to Julia carelessly. 

“I liked your composition,” she said to Julia. 
“I didn’t know you had read so much. What 
was the story, by the way, that made Bjorn- 
sterne’s reputation?” 

Julia blushed. She never looked embarrassed 
in an awkward situation. She merely flushed 
prettily, and looked down, so that you noticed 
how long her lashes were. 


JULIA 


107 


“Syn ” began Margie. 

“I thought so,” said Miss Starr. “Next time, 
Julia, I think you’d better write your own com- 
position.” 

That was all, but Julia and Margie walked 
away crestfallen. Julia was not angry. She 
was altogether sweet-tempered, and an injustice 
such as Margie had done her merely made her 
feel hurt. 

“I don’t think it was kind of you to play me a 
trick like that,” she said, reproachfully. “If 
you will insist on writing my compositions, you 
might consider me enough to fix it so Miss Starr 
won’t find it out.” 

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Margie. “She 
wouldn’t have known it if I hadn’t stuck in that 
Synove Solbaken. But I wanted to make it 
good.” 

“It was good, all but that,” Julia admitted. 
“Where’d you get the name?” 

“I read the book,” said Margie. “It was one 
of the kind you ought to like, you know.” 

“What was it about?” 

“About a girl. You aren’t angry, are 
you ?” 

“Oh, no,” said Julia, with her charming smile. 
“You didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. I’ll let 
you write my next composition.” 

“I don’t think I’d better.” 

“Oh, goodness, yes. Why, I couldn’t write 


io8 HEART OF A GIRL 

one to save my life. Only, for goodness’ sake, 
don’t let it be about books.” 

It was not about books. It was an impressive 
production with few proper names in it. Julia 
read it over four times, and was prepared for 
questions. Miss Starr asked none. The title 
of the essay was “The Origin of Man.” 

:|c SK 3i« SK 5k 

Margie’s father and mother were charmed 
with Julia. Her manners toward her elders 
were perfection, and she was so transparently 
naiVe that it was impossible not to like her. She 
seemed, with her wholesome cheeriness, an ideal 
friend for introspective Margie. Sixteen, how- 
ever, is a great deal older than fourteen. Julia 
was a young lady. Her two elder sisters were 
great belles, and scarcely a young man in all the 
town but was devoted to one or the other of 
the three pretty Westons. Julia’s admirers were 
not school-boys. They were young men of 
eighteen and nineteen, and the early twenties. 
Julia could not understand any one caring for a 
man with a moustache, but she admired men of 
the world. “Men,” she said, “who are fast.” 
“Fast” had in Margie’s mind an association with 
horses. It suggested the quality of being thor- 
oughbred. Men who were fast, she learned 
from Julia, were dashing and fascinating. They 
played billiards and smoked cigarettes, and won 


JULIA 1 09 

and lost money at poker. They drank, too, but 
in a nice way. They took too much wine, but 
they were never really drunk. 

With men like this Julia contrasted the slow 
ones, like the two Jenkins boys, who taught in 
Sunday-school, and thought dancing wicked. 
Against the background of the spineless good- 
ness of the Jenkins boys — one of them had come 
to see Sister Betty several times, and was fat, with 
moist, soft hands — the fast young men Julia 
knew seemed doubly attractive. Margie began 
to feel a desire to be wicked. Wickedness was so 
much more fascinating than goodness. Tom 
Houghton and Hunter Dunbar, who came to 
Julia’s house often, were delightfully wicked. 
They talked of the great sums they had lost at 
poker, and Tom said he had no faith in anybody 
on earth. Women were never to be trusted. And 
he looked so wise and cynical saying it that Mar- 
gie had not the slightest doubt he had been as 
wicked and broken-hearted as Byron. He wrote 
verses in which he held everything up to scorn. 
Hunter was a Southerner, and it was well known 
that he had challenged John Jenkins to mortal 
combat for the way he talked about people who 
danced. John Jenkins had refused to fight, where- 
upon Hunter had declared that he was not a man 
of honor. Tom was twenty, and Hunter was 
eighteen, and they were both in love with Julia. 
Margie still retained her old shyness, and had 


1 10 


HEARf OF A GIRL 


no personal feeling for either of them, but she 
gloried in possessing a friend who had such men 
for admirers. Their attitude toward her had but 
one sting. They considered her a child. They 
did not know that she, too, longed to be fast. 

Now and then she went to stay all night with 
Julia, and after they were in bed, Julia told her 
all Tom and Hunter had said. It was as ex- 
citing as a novel. In the evenings, too, at Julia’s, 
they played poker, with beans for chips. Tom 
and Dunbar talked as if poker were the most 
serious thing in life. They referred to this big 
game and that which they had sat in, and spoke 
of dollar limits as if dollars were no more to 
them than beans. Margie reveled in the wicked- 
ness of all this. Once when Tom gave her a real 
poker chip she carried it to school in her pocket, 
hoping it would fall out and scandalize every- 
body. Think of having a poker chip roll out 
when you stood up to parse ! 

The idea of being wicked for wickedness’ sake 
appealed to her less than being wicked as an as- 
sertion of her rights. If men were wicked, why 
couldn’t girls be, too? She proceeded at once to 
attain her end. Julia came to stay with her one 
night. Hunter and Tom called that evening, 
and Tom sang a great many dissipated-sounding 
songs. One was about the son of a Gambolier, 
and another was a parody on “I’m a Pilgrim, 
and I’m a Stranger.” They were the sort of 


JULIA III 

songs men of the world sang at stag suppers, 
when, as Hunter said, “wine flowed in rivers and 
every man swam.” They did not talk like this 
while Mrs. Carlin was in the room. She said 
they were pleasant boys, and Sister Betty called 
them “trundle-bed trash,” though not, of course, 
to their faces. 

Father came in just as they went away, and 
Julia and Margie sat with him while he drank 
half a bottle of ale. When he had gone to 
bed, Margie seized the bottle and ran up- 
stairs. She and Julia were now to acquire the 
ability to say that they, too, drank. It dashed 
Margie’s glee a trifle to know that Julia had 
already tasted ale, but that was when Julia had 
been ill, and the doctor had advised it. Margie 
herself had taken rock and rye for a cough, but 
swallowing things you are told to take is not 
drinking. They locked the door of Margie’s 
room, and with great caution poured the ale into 
two glasses. It had so bitter a taste that Margie 
could not swallow all her portion, and it was 
necessary to pour it stealthily out the window, 
but it was glorious to feel that one was now be- 
yond a doubt fast. They both felt that they 
were as intoxicated as one could be and still be 
nice. 

One other downward step, however, must be 
taken before they could feel themselves fully 
initiated, Tom and Hunter smoked cigarettes. 


I 12 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Julia purloined two from her father’s cigarette- 
case, and one day, after school, they set out to 
seek a safe retreat. They chose Island Park, 
and the very little hollow where Margie had 
fought her long fight with despair. No one 
could see them there. They sat down solemnly. 
It was a serious occasion. They were about to 
pass the Rubicon. After they had smoked they 
would always have a guilty secret to conceal. 
They would no longer be mere Grammar School 
girls, but women with pasts. Margie had 
smoked corn silk and lady cigars that grew on 
trees down in Gordonsville. There had been 
one day, too, when she had smoked a rattan cut 
from an old umbrella. She had done it out of 
sheer curiosity, and without the desire to achieve 
a past thereby. The consequence of the rattan 
had been a long afternoon spent under an apple- 
tree, dying a most unpleasant death, and won- 
dering if the birds would have time to cover her 
with leaves before her corpse was discovered. 
The recollection of this made her grave, but did 
not deter her. Julia produced matches, and they 
essayed to light their cigarettes. It was no easy 
matter doing that in a wind. Julia said their 
failures showed there was no Irish in them. 
Margie took off her hat and, behind the shelter 
of it, lighted her cigarette. The first puff 
strangled her, but she got her breath again while 
Julia took a light from her. Then gingerly they 


JULIA 1 13 

held their cigarettes and smoked. It took a very 
long time to smoke half an inch, but they kept 
on. Margie forced a laugh once or twice. 

“What would people say if they saw us?” she 
said bravely. 

Her cigarette kept raveling out in her mouth 
and seemed to have no draft through it. It was 
necessary to light it several times. Julia, too, 
kept picking shreds from her tongue. After her 
cigarette went out twice, she did not try to light 
it again. She merely held it in one hand and 
looked straight ahead. 

“Oh, Margie,” she said, “it makes me feel too 
awful for words!” 

Margie let her cigarette go out. For a long 
time no words were spoken. They heard the 
rustling of leaves. The rector of Julia’s church 
came strolling along the edge of the hollow. He 
was smoking meditatively as he walked, smoking 
a pipe. He smiled down at the two girls ab- 
sently, and spoke without ceasing in his ramble. 

“Oh, my dears,” said he, “enjoying the beau- 
ties of the greenwood?” 

He went on without waiting for a response. 
Julia and Margie merely groaned. The next 
day Margie summed up her impressions in one 
significant sentence in her diary. 

“I do not believe,” she wrote, “that dissipa- 
tion ever makes people really happy.” 


CHAPTER X. 


A ROMANCE. 

There is something extremely contagious 
about a love affair. Margie was not long a 
bosom friend of Julia before she felt that she, 
too, ought to have a romance. Julia was now 
engaged to Hunter, but it was a profound secret, 
so profound that it in no way prevented her from 
encouraging Tom and half a dozen other boys. 
She liked Margie in the gooseberry role, for 
Margie never dreamed of claiming anyone her- 
self. She was all for Julia, and bent her mind 
to schemes Julia would never have thought of, 
to the end that Jennie and Minnie would have no 
following whatever. 

For the first time now in Adams City there 
was a dancing school. Everybody went. It 
was precisely like having a party every week. 
Mr. Carlin had a card for Margie in ex- 
change for advertising, and Julia and Hunter, 
with Tom or a lesser satellite, called for her 
every Friday evening. Margie danced well and 
enjoyed the dancing school very much. By 


A ROMANCE 


115 

skilful manoeuvring, it was possible to keep Jen- 
nie and Minnie from dancing with the best part- 
ners. Margie liked them, but they were as noth- 
ing compared with Julia. Margie enjoyed work- 
ing for Julia. It was so easy to catch a boy 
through his curiosity and his vanity. One had 
only to say to Tom, “I heard something about 
you,” to make him dangle about all the evening, 
in the hope of finding out what you had heard. 
And you could hint that Julia knew, too, and 
after that Minnie and Jennie did not exist for 
Tom. To mention a “trade last” set Hunter 
guessing. It was not mean to Jennie and Minnie, 
either. In Adams City there were at least three 
times as many young men as girls, and if Julia 
had the cream, there was plenty of excellent milk 
for Jennie and Minnie. 

It was delightful to see Julia, so charming, 
so heartless, so utterly careless of how many 
boys were ready to cut their throats on her 
account. Julia was always like the heroine 
of a romance. If Margie began to want a 
love affair of her own, it was only that she 
wished to be like her adored Julia. It was 
a want that was not long unsatisfied. Patsy 
Welch came to town, and Margie was promptly 
“kersmashed.” “Kersmashed” was a word of 
Julia’s. Most of the girls said “mashed,” but 
“mashed” wasn’t quite a nice word, Julia and 
Margie thought. Patsy Welch was a profes- 


HEART OF A GIRL 


ii6 

sional ball-player. Adams City and five other 
towns formed a league. Everybody went to ball 
games that year. Play began as soon as the 
frost was out of the surface ground. It is all 
summer coming out of the six-foot depths to 
which it sinks in a Dakota winter. Mr. Carlin 
had a season ticket to the baseball park, and 
never missed a game. Neither did Margie. She 
was an enthusiast over baseball, and understood 
the game well enough to keep a score-card, mark- 
ing errors, triple plays, passed balls, strikes and 
fouls as completely as the official score-keeper 
himself. She would have gone to ball games 
with father in any sort of weather even if there 
had been no Patsy Welch. Given a Patsy 
Welch, the ball park became Paradise. Patsy 
was pitcher. Intricate, misleading curves were 
the fashion then, and Patsy was a wizard with 
the ball. He was Margie’s first hero. 

In her first year in Dakota, when the golden 
spike which completed the Northern Pacific had 
been driven in. General Grant had passed through 
Adams City with the party of great men, and had 
stopped to make a speech in the bandstand in the 
little park facing Front street. Margie, on the 
edge of the crowd, heard nothing, but suddenly 
the people before her fell back to right and left, 
and a short, plain, bearded man held out his 
hand to her. It was one of the great disap- 
pointments of her life. She had imagined Grant 


A ROMANCE 


1 17 

a blue and gold figure on horseback, waving a 
sword. He was nothing but a man. Patsy 
Welch, however, did not disappoint her. He 
looked *the hero. He seemed to her like the 
Greek, god-like hero she had read of in one of 
Ouida’s novels. He was even young Apollo him- 
self. Seen from the grandstand he was perfect. 
His gray suit fitted him trimly, and its open 
collar showed a statuesque neck. His teeth were 
dazzlingly white, and when he threw off his cap 
to catch a high ball, one could see that his brown 
hair curled crisply. Every movement was grace- 
ful. He was brave, too. Slides that would have 
appalled an ordinary man he took without hesi- 
tation. Margie admired him most on the day 
when he played the last three innings with the 
gash of the second baseman’s spiked shoe show- 
ing scarlet on his forehead. 

It was a long time before she told Julia 
of her “kersmash,” and possibly she would 
never have told it if Julia had not come to 
stay all night with her. Darkness coaxes se- 
crets out of one. Julia was sympathetic and 
confessed that she, too, thought Patsy too 
sweet for words. She was for devising some 
scheme of meeting him. Several of the boys 
knew him, but Margie shied at this. It was 
enough for her to worship from afar. She liked 
to dream of meeting him in all sorts of romantic 
situations. He might save her from a burning 


ii8 


HEART OF A GIRL 


house, or stand between her and a mad dog, or 
she might warn him of some terrible danger, or 
find him dangerously wounded and bind up his 
wounds. An introduction would be too common- 
place, and, besides, unless she met him in some 
heroic way, she would not be able to say a word 
to him. One couldn’t say, “I’m glad to know 
you,” or “Pleasant day, isn’t it?” to Patsy 
Welch. She did not even look at him when she 
met him in the street. At first glimpse of his 
lounging figure at a corner, she looked away and 
tried to walk gracefully, hoping he would notice 
her. Once she saw him across the street as she 
was going into a store. He was at the store door 
when she came out, and she was sure he looked at 
her, but she walked away as fast as she could 
without being ungraceful. Hunter told her that 
Patsy had asked who that good-looking girl was 
that came to every game. He had mentioned 
her hat, so there could be no doubt he meant her. 

School was out now, and the Westons had 
gone back to the farm. Margie wrote a twenty- 
four page letter to Julia about Patsy. She re- 
membered to put in something about Tom and 
Hunter and the other boys. They came to call 
on her now and then. Mrs. Carlin thought that 
boy and girl friendships were charming. “Tom 
and Hunter,” she said, “have such nice manners 
for boys of their age. There is nothing of the 
hobble-de-hoy about them.” She was accustomed 


A ROMANCE 


1 19’ 


to say that she had always been in Margie’s con- 
fidence, and, indeed, Margie told her everything 
except the things she would not have been 
pleased to hear. 

Julia’s answer was only twelve pages long, and 
it was for the most part questions. She asked 
Margie to visit her. Her two elder sisters were 
at home, and they had a quite old-young lady 
and Hunter’s elder brother visiting them. Her 
elder brother was home from college, too, and 
Hunter and another boy were coming to visit 
him. 

“We’ll have a glorious time,” Julia wrote. 

Margie had not been on the cars since she 
came to Dakota, and never in her life alone. 
Westonborough lay forty miles to the north, and 
the Weston farm ten miles beyond that, or, at 
least, the Weston home was that far from the 
town. The farm itself comprised ten or twelve 
sections, and was parcelled off into three 
divisions. The Westons lived at headquarters, 
where the office of the farm was. Westonbor- 
ough was not nearly so large as Adams City, but 
it had a baseball club in the league. 

Margie journeyed north feeling very impor- 
tant. She had never been away from home before 
without her mother, and it was a great occasion. 
There was nothing to be seen on the way but the 
limitless stretch of the prairie, a plain of wheat, 
already beginning to ripen into gold. It was all 


120 


HEART OF A GIRL 


beautiful to Margie. At first, the sunsets in the 
Dakota summers had frightened her. It was 
awesome to see the sun hanging in the west, 
blood-red, and flattened out of shape. The sen- 
tinel sun-dogs at each side of the sun in the win- 
ter had seemed terrible at first, and the terrific 
storms had made her afraid. Now, the prairie 
suggested merely the freedom of a wide horizon. 
She loved it. 

There were only two or three settlements 
between Adams City and Westonborough, all 
alike — bare, wooden buildings, with streets of 
gray-white dust, flanked by wooden sidewalks. 
Here and there she scented the rank smell of 
a reed-grown slough. Johnny Halderman liked 
the smell of the slough. He said that with 
his eyes shut he could fancy himself on the salt 
marshes near his New England home at low 
tide. Years afterward the salt marshes were 
to bring the Dakota sloughs back to Margie. 

She was' a little uneasy as the train neared 
Westonborough. Father had told her to go to 
the hotel if the Westons were not there to meet 
her, but she had no idea of how to get into a 
hotel. The formula had never been imparted to 
her. It was her habit to make up beforehand 
the speeches she meant to make to a shopkeeper, 
or to any one with whom she had an errand. 
She did not know what one ought to say on enter- 
ing a hotel. It was a relief to find the Westons’ 


A ROMANCE 


I2I 


buckboard waiting. Julia was driving, with 
Hunter beside her. On the back seat was a boy 
of about Hunter’s age. His name was Kirby 
Bolt. His father owned most of the “bonanza” 
farm which touched the Westons, and was some 
sort of a lord in England. Julia had spoken of 
him often, but Margie did not know, until they 
had driven several miles, that this was he. Julia 
called him “Bob.” Margie was startled when 
she realized that she was sitting beside the son of 
some sort of a lord. He was merely a pleasant, 
freckled boy, not half so romantic-looking as 
Patsy Welch. He did not talk much. Julia’s 
chatter gave him little opportunity. When she 
pulled herself up in the midst of a question with 
a “It’s rude to talk before you of people you 
don’t know,” Kirby Bolt merely answered: 

“Go on. It’s no end jolly, you know.” 

Margie liked him at once. He made no pre- 
tense of being anything but a boy. There was 
none of Hunter’s weary man-of-the-world air 
about him. When Hunter offered him a cigar- 
ette he said he didn’t smoke. Hunter looked 
over his shoulder a trifle superciliously. 

“Don’t you drink, either?” he asked. 

“No, I don’t,” said Kirby Bolt. “What’s 
the good? It isn’t as if I couldn’t, you know. 
The pater doesn’t object, su' — ^where’s the 
good?” 

By and by he began to tell Margie about Har- 


122 


HEART OF A GIRL 


row, where he had been at school. She had to 
ask a great many questions to find out anything. 
He seemed to think nobody could possibly be in- 
terested in Harrow. He said he found America 
awfully jolly, but the people had such a larky 
way of chaffing a fellow, and they spoke such 
extraordinary English. They didn’t go in for 
sport, either. Kirby Bolt thought baseball a 
most unintr’esting game. So different to 
cricket, which was a game a fellow might show 
some form in. Margie lost all interest in him 
at once. What did an Englishman know about 
things, anyway? She was glad when they 
stopped at the first division of the Weston farm, 
and Kirby Bolt left them. They saw him mount 
his horse and ride toward home. He bounced in 
the saddle in a way none of them thought grace- 
ful. 

Margie’s recollection of her stay at Weston 
Farm was a long whirl of gaiety. Nobody 
seemed ever to sleep. Everybody was bent on 
having a good time. It was not at all like being 
on a farm in Illinois. The house was big and 
bare. It had only living-rooms and bed-rooms. 
The dining-room was in the superintendent’s 
house just across the croquet ground, and beyond 
that house was the men’s house, with dining- 
room and kitchen downstairs, and dormitory 
above. There was a blacksmith shop, and an ice 
house, and huge barns, but no vegetable garden, 


A ROMANCE 


123 

and no poultry yard. The Westons sent to town 
for all their supplies. 

Till cutting began, nobody seemed to have 
anything to do. Young men rode or drove miles 
to see Julia’s sisters, and all the party would 
drive on another day to dinner ten miles in one 
direction, and to supper ten miles in another. It 
was often daylight when they came home, but 
their daylight came three hours after midnight 
and lasted till nine in the evening. After cutting 
began, they would pass the reaping machines, 
seven abreast, mowing their multiple swath in 
mile square fields, as they drove home. 

The climax of all their merrymaking was a 
ball in Westonborough. The ballroom was a 
loft over a livery stable, but a waxed canvas 
made the floor perfect for dancing. The orches- 
tra was a bass viol and one violin, and nobody 
for twenty miles around stayed at home that 
night. Julia and Margie wore white muslin. 
Julia’s sisters were in ball gowns of pink and 
blue. The barber’s wife was dressed in black 
silk, with white slippers, and the waitress from 
the hotel danced in pink calico. Hunter and 
Kirby Bolt were in evening dress. Julia’s 
brother, Fred, insisted on wearing a gray sack 
coat. The postmaster wore a frock coat, and the 
livery stable-keeper a Norfolk jacket. Yes, 
everybody was there, and everybody danced — 
danced heel-and-toe polkas, and waltzes, and 


124 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Portland fancies, and lanciers, and waltz qua- 
drilles, and schottisches, and in every square 
dance the fiddler called out the figures. It was 
all noisy and merry and gloriously good fun. 
The Weston party had come a little late, but 
with three men for every girl there, nobody could 
lack partners. Kirby Bolt did not reverse when 
he waltzed, but he whirled about with so much 
spirit that dancing with him was really more fun 
than dancing with Hunter, who waltzed per- 
fectly. Margie was standing beside Kirby Bolt, 
catching her breath after one of his dizzying 
whirls, when Hunter and Julia stopped beside 
them. In the next moment a hand fell on Hun- 
ter’s arm and a voice said: “Say, gimme a knock- 
down to Miss Carlin.” 

Patsy Welch had arrived. He had pitched 
a winning game that day in Westonborough, and 
perhaps he was flushed with something beside 
victory. Hunter, taken unaware, presented him 
to Margie. Then it seemed to her that every- 
body drew away and left her with her hero. 

“I seen you at all the games,” he said, show- 
ing his dazzling teeth. “Is his nibs that goes 
with you your father?” 

“Yes,” said Margie. 

“I thought so,” said Patsy. “I knew you 
wouldn’t be going around with no old feller 
unless he was one of the family. You ain’t that 
kind” 


A ROMANCE 


125 


Margie felt as if she were going to scream. 
This Patsy? This her Greek, god-like hero? 
This common creature who looked at her in that 
familiar way, and said “seen”? There was an 
odor on his breath as he bent nearer her that 
disgusted her. It was like the — yes, it was 
whiskey. She had taken a dose of that once 
when she had been seized with a chill. She was 
frightened and miserably ashamed. Suppose 
this dreadful, common man found out that she 
had admired him? For an instant she had a 
great longing to run home and tell mother. 
Then a waltz began, and Patsy swung her out 
on the floor. He held her closer than Hunter 
and Kirby Bolt ever did, and she tried to push 
herself away. Patsy danced well, and enjoyed 
himself hugely. It pleased him to bang into 
people and knock them to one side. Margie 
turned over in her mind a dozen schemes for 
getting rid of him. Suppose he thought she went 
to games merely to see him. Out on the diamond 
he was so different. And she had enjoyed games 
in which he did not play. She waltzed on mis- 
erably twice about the room. She could not tell 
Patsy she wanted to stop, without turning her 
head, and he had been drinking. Hunter and 
^Tom talked a great deal about drinking, but one 
never smelled whiskey when one danced with 
them. Near the end of the room she caught 
sight of Kirby Bolt, standing, watching her. He 


126 


HEART OF A GIRL 


looked so clean and good and boyish. As they 
passed him, Patsy gleefully slammed against a 
couple. The impact made him lose step. Kirby 
Bolt stepped forward quickly. 

“I am afraid Miss Carlin turned her ankle 
then,” he said. 

“Yes, yes, I did,” said Margie, eagerly. “Let 
me sit down.” 

Kirby Bolt found her a chair. 

“Go on and dance,” she said to Patsy. “Go 
and find somebody else. I don’t want to dance 
any more.” 

Patsy bowed low and went. 

“Rum sort of a chap, that,” said Kirby Bolt. 

Margie looked at him gratefully. 

“It wasn’t rum,” she said, “it was whiskey. 
Oh, I do wish I was at home with my mother.” 


CHAPTER XL 

A BROKEN BOND. 

There is no moralist so uncompromisingly 
stern as your reformed rake. Margie came back 
from Westonborough prepared to write “Mene, 
Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” on the face of the 
world. She had tried dissipation and she had 
tried romance, and neither of these things had 
proved satisfactory. It gave her a melancholy 
pleasure to feel that she had lived deeply. “I 
have lived and loved,” she wrote in her diary. 
“Henceforth I shall live for higher things.” 

The immediate high thing was the High 
School. She entered it just ten years from the 
day when she had sat on the gate-post and 
watched George Budd march off into an un- 
known world. School began a week before the 
Westons came to town, but Julia traveled down 
in advance of them to stay with Margie. Margie 
loved her more dearly than ever. There was 
even an element of the maternal in her love, for 
127 


128 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Julia cared for follies which she herself had out- 
grown. She felt immeasurably Julia’s senior, 
and no longer took an interest in Julia’s love af- 
fairs. She had none of her own, and never 
should have any. Friendship, unalterable and 
eternal, sufficed for her. She wanted it to suffice 
for Julia, also. 

They had a delightful week together. The 
High School was on the South Side, and 
the classes sat in what had been the Gram- 
mar School room when the building was 
new. To reach the school, Margie and Julia 
walked down Broadway and, turning at a right 
angle up Front street, passed all the shops and 
hotels. It was a triumphal progress when they 
started on the second day with their new books. 
In the Grammar School there was always a 
geography, which looked so very childish. 
Grammar School books in general were thin, 
with titles printed on the front. High School 
books were all of a size, and thick. The Latin 
Grammar and lesson book and the Algebra 
had leather backs, and the Physics and Physiol- 
ogy, which completed the pile, were imposing. 
People seeing one, would naturally be impressed. 
They could not know that one was in the lowest 
class. With the Latin Grammar on top (and 
Margie had Betty’s, which was old), the book 
next to it might very well be taken for a Cicero. 
It was almost like going to college. One knew 


A BROKEN BOND 


129 

a great deal when one began to go to High 
School. 

The High School was a delight to Margie. 
She was not a student, and in schools arranged 
for .the average intelligence, she had never 
needed to be. It had never been an effort for 
her to stand first, or second, at least, in most 
classes. Arithmetic she had always detested, 
and had never been certain about adding, until 
she devised, at Major Winchester’s suggestion, 
a method of adding by subtraction. If she had 
a seven, say, to add to twenty-five, she added 
ten first; and seven being three less than ten, 
subtracted three from the result. She worked 
always with ten, for ten was the number of her 
fingers. In any study in which success depended 
merely on committing things to memory, she was 
always pre-eminent. Grammar she had been 
fond of in the Grammar School. She passed 
naturally to a love of Latin Grammar. Latin 
satisfied her love of romance. It belonged to 
the dreamland of classic stories. Algebra was 
not so pleasant, but it was in no way so bad 
as arithmetic. Letters were not ugly to look at, 
as figures had always been. Physiology was only 
mildly interesting, and it added to no one’s hap- 
piness to know about how one’s organs worked, 
but Physics was a constant joy. In the Adams 
City school there was no laboratory. The 
teacher made a few simple experiments before 


130 


HEART OF A GIRL 


the class, and the rest one committed to memory, 
taking the book’s word for them. Physics ex- 
plained the why of things. 

Julia was not fond of studying, nor was she 
able to learn readily. That Margie should learn 
on the way to school one morning all the prepo- 
sitions which govern the accusative case, seemed 
incredible to her. She did not understand that 
they went with a certain rhythm, and were splen- 
did words to say. She never felt uncomfortable 
at all to feel that she did not know what she was 
expected to know. She was content to slide 
along. Margie would have been glad to slight 
lessons, too, but right in what the Physiology 
taught her was her solar plexus, there was an 
empty feeling, or, as the Physics called it, a 
vacuum when she thought of going to school with 
a lesson unlearned. Julia never felt empty ex- 
cept in her stomach. When Margie tried to ex- 
plain about the vacuum she said she thought 
Margie had a conscience that troubled her. 
Margie was sure it was no conscience. She did 
not believe she possessed such a thing. She had 
been wicked, and if she had had a conscience it 
would have brought remorse upon her. She felt 
no remorse. 

People with consciences, girls especially, al- 
ways confessed to their mothers what they 
had done. She had never felt any pricks of 
conscience about concealing her past from her 


A BROKEN BOND 


131 

mother. She could see no sense in getting her- 
self a scolding. She disliked unpleasantness im- 
mensely, and hated to be in disfavor. No, she 
had no conscience about her studies. She had 
merely a vacuum. She was not even moved to 
explain things to the teacher when Julia, asked 
to tell to what declension “fructus’’ belonged, 
said “Second,’’ thus giving her the clue to the 
proper reply, “Fourth.” If she had been called 
on first, she would have made Julia’s mistake, 
and if she had possessed a conscience she would 
have told Miss Kent so. George Washington 
would have done it. Lack of conscience made 
her regard herself at times as hardened by the 
life she had led, but callousness pleased her, 
rather than otherwise. 

Of her real code of morals she was in no way 
conscious. If lone had infuriated her, she would 
have flung back the taunt that Dave, whom lone 
admired, was going with somebody else. It 
would have been impossible for her to mention 
lone’s father. It never occurred to her to tell 
one girl what another girl said against her. 
Even when she said mean things about girls her- 
self, she never mentioned their physical defects, 
and she was scarcely civil to anyone she disliked. 

Now, Julia liked everybody, and Margie cared 
for no one but Julia. The South Side girls were 
new to Julia, but Margie had known them and 
formed no intimacies among them, in an earlier 


132 


HEART OF A GIRL 


day. She had always remained on friendly 
terms with lone, who lived nearer her than the 
other girls, but after Julia’s coming she had 
dropped all other friendships. The Westons 
took another house that winter, a large one near 
the High School, and Julia’s way home lay in 
an opposite direction from Margie’s. 

At first, Margie enjoyed introducing Julia. 
Julia belonged to her, and she was immensely 
proud of the possession. Then, little by little, 
the South Side girls began to know Julia, not as 
Margie’s friend, but as herself. She liked them, 
and they liked her, for no one could help liking 
Julia. 

Margie began to feel a little out of things. 
Julia was finding other girls of sixteen, girls who 
had a keener interest in boys than Margie had 
ever pretended. She was essentially gregarious. 
She enjoyed popularity. Margie was not popu- 
lar. Her likes and dislikes were violent. She was 
indifferent and sensitive at the same time. She 
was both devoted and exacting. She was not 
jealous of Hunter, nor of any of the other boys 
Julia was “kermashed” on, but she was jealous 
of every girl Julia spoke to. In the old days 
they had doubled teams against Jennie and Min- 
nie. Now, Julia wanted to ^shut no one out. 
Margie still helped her with compositions, but 
the girls in the second class assisted at her les- 
sons. Slowly Julia drifted away. Margie had 


A BROKEN BOND 


133 


no impulse to make friends with the other girls 
for the sake of being in Julia’s circle. She pre- 
ferred to flock by herself and to nurse her grow- 
ing sense of wrong. 

It was a cruel autumn for her. Winter was 
at hand, but she deluded herself with every 
chance day of Indian summer warmth. Some- 
times she went home with Julia after school, and 
was happy, till some of Julia’s new friends 
* dropped in. Julia seemed to expect her to enjoy 
the addition of a third to their confidential two. 
Two was vitally company to Margie, and three 
a crowd. Julia liked a crowd. Margie went 
home from such visits morose and sombre, but 
it was not in her to accept disaster while there 
was still some room for hope. 

Hope was crowded out when Anna Roberts 
organized her toboggan club. Margie had 
known Anna for years, and had never liked her. 
Anna had seized upon Julia at the very begin- 
ning of the year. Like most of Julia’s new 
friends, she was in the second-year class, and she 
lived near the Westons. Also, she admired 
Julia’s brother Fred. 

It was the year when tobogganing was most 
in fashion. There were no hills in Adams City, 
unless one could call the rise of the river banks a 
hill, but with a long and steep wooden chute to 
lengthen this at one side, and the ice of the river 
to prolong it on the other, the river bank became 


134 


HEART OF A GIRL 


as fine a slide as any in the Northwest. By night, 
flaring torches lighted it, and no matter what the 
degree of cold was, it was never deserted from 
noon till midnight on any day of the winter. No 
one was too old, and few were too young to to- 
boggan. At the shelter house at the foot of the 
stairs which led up to the head of the chute, 
toboggans were for hire. The stove there was 
always red hot, but on many a day the frost 
covered the windows with a coating furry and 
entirely opaque. 

Tobogganing on chutes scarcely wider than 
the toboggan itself required little skill. It was 
only when one struck the smooth ice of the 
river that a foot trailing behind was neces- 
sary to keep the toboggan from spinning or 
swerving. If one touched the wooden guard 
at the side of the chute with a sleeve on the way 
down the friction burned through as if a hot 
iron had scorched there. That, too, when the 
cold of the descent left one at the bottom with 
frost on one’s eyelashes. Few of the girls 
owned toboggans. A toboggan was incomplete 
without a boy to risk a moccasined toe in steer- 
ing, and in a country where boys were so plenti- 
ful it was unnecessary to possess a toboggan of 
one’s own. Every girl, however, must wear a 
blanket suit, a toque and a sash. Blankets come 
in pairs, and it takes but one to make a suit. 
Margie saw in this fact a happy significance. 


A BROKEN BOND 


135 


She and Julia, sharing a pair of blankets, would 
have suits alike. She mentioned it to Julia one 
morning in the cloak-room before school. 

“Why,” said Julia, “Anna Roberts asked me 
last night to join the Silent Six she’s getting up. 
She’s already ordered the blankets.” 

It was not for Margie to know that the facts 
of the blankets being made in pairs had brought 
this about — that and Anna’s admiration for 
Fred. There were only live girls in the second 
class who were in Anna’s set, or, indeed, in any- 
body’s set, for the three other girls who made 
up the feminine half of the class were not the 
sort that belongs to things. The extra blanket 
must go to some one, and, naturally, it went to 
Julia. Julia saw in it merely a delightful oppor- 
tunity to have good times. Margie saw in it 
betrayal. Julia had deserted her. 

The hurt went deep with Margie. She could 
not console herself with other friends, for she 
knew no one she loved as she loved Julia. No 
one had ever been to her what Julia was, and 
she told herself that nobody ever would be again, 
which, as it happened, was precisely true. She 
took it tragically. Walking home in the winter 
twilight that day, she was too unhappy to put 
her thoughts into sentences, and it had always 
been her habit to think in words. She said over 
and over to herself, “Oh, Julia! Oh, Julia!” 

Twilight on the snow always affected her as 


HEART OF A GIRL 


136 

few other things did — only moonlight, and an 
October afternoon, woke the same feeling in her 
— a wistful melancholy, a something not quite 
sadness, that she had no words to express. This 
evening the prairie seemed a part of her desola- 
tion. She walked far out beyond her home, to 
the frozen sedges of the slough. Formulated 
thoughts came to her slowly. She did not feel 
angry at Julia. It seemed to her that if she 
herself had been more lovable, Julia would not 
have cared for Anna. She knew she was sar- 
castic and aloof, but she saw no way of being 
different. 

“I have tried to be like people, God,” she 
said aloud, “but I can’t. I don’t know how. 
Perhaps if I could do things — have things like 
the other girls — I’ve had so few clothes — I could 
never give Julia a really good time — ^nobody 
much wants to know me. I wish you’d made me 
different or not made me at all.” 

Her throat ached. She turned away from the 
last glow in the west and went home. Her head 
ached, she said, and she didn’t care for any din- 
ner. It was not a matter she could tell her 
mother. Her mother liked everybody, and 
everybody liked mother. Mother could not un- 
derstand why you didn’t want more than one 
friend, why you didn’t know how to make friends 
even when you wanted to. Mother was lovable. 
So was Betty. Mother called Betty “Daughter,” 


A BROKEN BOND 


(137 


and once, when Margie, hearing her from the 
room below, had answered, “Here I am,” 
mother had said, “No, I want Betty.” Margie 
was not “Daughter.” She was merely “Honey,” 
or “My Baby Girl.” 

Margie went to her room with the intention 
of crying all night about it. She was asleep when 
her mother looked in to tuck her in for the night. 

Julia’s defection was, however, a very deep 
and lasting hurt — a deeper hurt than any but 
a very young girl can ever feel. It was impos- 
sible, though, that she should dwell in despair 
long. It was her way to add to any hurt all the 
other agonies she could conjure up. She would 
go on and on till her imagination had shown her 
the utmost depth. And the utmost depth was 
something so terrifying to look into that a 
glimpse of it sent her scurrying back to compara- 
tive cheerfulness again. Standing where the 
brook and river meet is standing unsheltered 
against all the blasts that blow. Margie hugged 
her morbid jealousy to her breast and lived a 
blighted being. Betty said she was as cross as 
two sticks, and mother had her take medicine. 

In time, a week, say, she began to write poetry 
about Julia and Julia’s falseness. A diary had 
taken the place of the buried ciphers of her 
childhood, and it was written, as they were, with 
an eye on some future sympathetic reader. No- 
body’s side of a story but her own ever went 


HEART OF A GIRL 


138 

into her diary. The poem on Julia took up a 
whole page: 

“I sat by the western window 
At the close of a winter’s day, 

Watching the bright hues of the sunset 
Blend with the twilight’s gray. 

Far from horizon to zenith 
The sky was all aglow, 

And the gorgeous tints of the vault of Heaven 
Were reflected in the snow. 

Then slowly the glory faded. 

Night let its dark curtain down, 

And one by one the stars came out. 

And the lights were lit in the town. 

But still I sat by the window. 

And my thoughts were all of you. 

Have you broken our bond of friendship? 

Are you false, or are you true ? 

I fear that your vaunted friendship 
Was but a sunset glow. 

And faded as quickly as that did. 

Leaving no light on the snow 
Of my life, made more dreary without you. 

Ah, me I and I trusted you, too. 

But is not this the way of all friendships, 

And is this anything new?” 

At the end of the page Margie wrote, ‘‘In 
memoriam meus Amor pro Julia,” Later she 


A BROKEN BOND 


139 


changed it to “Amor mens Juliae,” but being 
uncertain as to which form was the better Latin, 
and having some doubts about both, she finally 
scratched the words out and left the poem as it 
was. It seemed to her a remarkable composi- 
tion. “Vaunted” worried her a little, but it 
seemed a better word than “boasted,” which she 
thought once of using, though neither word quite 
suited the case. Julia had never said anything 
about being fond of Margie, and Margie had 
never mentioned adoring her. She treated Mar- 
gie precisely the same after the betrayal as be- 
fore. She was always sweet to everybody. 

Even if one has been basely betrayed, one 
must go on living, and there are still toboggan 
slides and clubs. Minnie Hewett organized one 
and invited Margie. Minnie admired Margie, 
who did not lack satellites at any time. Admira- 
tion is soothing when one is blighted. Minnie 
and Margie divided a pair of blankets. Margie 
declined, as it were, on Minnie. Minnie thought 
she was the most original creature on earth, and 
Minnie’s father said she was the only girl he 
knew whom he really wanted as a friend for his 
daughter. Minnie detested Anna Roberts, and 
said things which were pleasant to her, though 
Margie wouldn’t have said them herself. It 
was not the same as having Julia for a friend, 
but it was better than being alone. Margie had 
several friends now^ and domineered over them* 


140 


HEART OF A GIRL 


They tobogganed, and they tramped the country 
on snowshoes, and they went to parties. Under 
it all, though, Margie’s heart ached for Julia. 
She felt that she would have given her life for 
Julia, and, in spite of all, was still prepared to 

i: do it. 

^ ' Toward spring the ladies of one of the 
churches arranged a fair. It was held in the 
Opera House, which, having a level floor, was 
an excellent place for it. There were booths for 
the sale of all manner of fancy articles. There 
were tableaux and, most engaging of all, there 
was a fan drill. Sister Betty sang, and the rest 
of the time she was a Greek girl, in a booth. 
Margie was in the fan drill, and Julia was in 
three different tableaux. The girls piled their 
wraps in the dressing-rooms back of the stage. It 
was a rainy night, and Margie wore the apple 
of her eye, a brand-new gossamer, or rain coat. 
This, with her rubber overshoes and her um- 
brella, she placed carefully in one corner. 

To be in things was the delight of her life. 
She enjoyed reciting “How He Saved St. 
Michael’s,” at school. The only unpleasant 
thing about it was saying it over beforehand to 
the teacher. A single auditor embarrassed her. 
An audience thrilled her. She was in a seventh 
heaven of delight while the ten girls went 
through their fan drill, waving their fans and 
bowing and marching. Afterward she gazed 


A BROKEN BOND 


141 

sadly on Julia in the tableaux. Julia was the 
prettiest girl there. Everybody said so. Mar- 
gie told her what everybody said when they met 
out in front. Hunter said so, too, but Tom was 
gallant enough to say that Margie had been the 
most graceful girl in the drill. 

They were standing near the back of the hall 
under the gallery when he said it, and he broke 
off his last word with a cry. Before their eyes a 
tongue of flame darted from the corner of a 
bunting-covered booth, and widened into a sheet. 

“Fire!” shouted a dozen voices. The crowd 
seemed to hesitate an instant, and then swept 
toward the door. Margie was knocked against 
a pillar which supported the balcony, and clung 
there. She did not feel afraid. 

“Come on I” yelled Tom, tugging at her Jap- 
anese dress. It tore in his hand, but Margie 
clung obstinately to her pillar. Her one idea 
was to get to the dressing-room. She could not 
go out into the rain without her rubbers and her 
gossamer. She knew a drenching would give her 
a cold, and, besides, if she did not save the gos- 
samer it would be burned. Some one stepped 
on her feet and tore her slipper off. More than 
ever now she could not go. And she must save 
the gossamer. If she didn’t get it, it would be 
burned. She must save the gossamer. 

She did not see anyone tear down the blazing 
bunting and stamp out the flames. She did not 


142 


HEART OF A GIRL 


see people begin to come back, shamefacedly. 
She merely clung to her pillar and thought about 
the gossamer. It was only when Betty, who 
had been swept out in the panic, came back that 
she thought of anything else. The one Idea then 
was to get home with the gossamer before the 
fire began again. On the way home she heard 
Betty and Father talking of people who had been 
hurt in the jam on the stairs. 

“You did just the right thing,” Father said. 
“But why didn’t you keep Julia from running?” 

“Julia?” said Margie, vaguely. 

“Yes; Julia was badly bruised when she fell.” 

Margie scratched out several lines in her 
diary after that. One was about being willing 
to die for Julia’s sake. On the page In which she 
described the fair, she wrote : “I am glad every- 
body says I showed presence of mind,” but she 
made no mention of the gossamer. 


CHAPTER XII. 


AN IDEAL AND A REALITY. 

Mr. Carlin had a cousin in Nebraska who 
owned a large daily paper. He had often urged 
Margie’s father to accept an editorial position 
under him, but Mr. Carlin, who was a shy and 
reticent man, disliking changes, and dreading the 
necessity for meeting strangers, was disinclined 
to make another move. It was not until Mrs. 
Carlin’s health failed that he decided to go. 
Mrs. Carlin had always missed the trees of Gor- 
donsville, though Margie did not know till years 
afterward how bleak the bare prairie seemed to 
her. Once in the summer before the wheat was 
cut, Margie had run in to call her mother to see 
a curious thing. Far away to the west there had 
suddenly appeared a lake with green trees about 
it. The ripples were dancing in the sun. Mrs. 
Carlin watched it a long time. 

“It’s a mirage,’’ she said. “I wish we could 
rest in the shade of the trees.” 

There had been little rest for her in Dakota. 
Long afterward she told Margie that she had 
143 


144 


HEART OF A GIRL 


always meant to go some day to the narrow belt 
of woods along the river, and lie down in the 
shade and cry, but there had never been a day 
when she could spare the time. 

Margie was not really sorry to leave Dakota. 
She saw no way of adjusting herself to a future 
without Julia in it. She was uncomfortably con- 
scious that she had not quite lived up to her ideal 
of devotion, but there would never be anyone to 
take Julia’s place. She had never taken root in 
Dakota. The sun there seemed always to rise 
in the north, and in the winter, after Julia be- 
longed to her no more, the prairie, too, betrayed 
her. She had come to love it for its free, wide 
outlook. The winter twilight had reflected her 
desolation. Nature appealed to her only as it 
expressed her moods. Now, the prairie became 
a thing of terror. 

The Carlins’ house was on the edge of the 
town, and in winter, when the slough was frozen, 
the shortest way home lay across it, and across 
a stretch of open prairie. The walk from the 
place where she turned from the street, to home, 
was not longer than two city blocks. Margie was 
four hours crossing it that day, four hours alone 
with the prairie and the blizzard. 

The storm seemed to swoop down from a clear 
sky. In an instant she was shut in by a whirling 
curtain of snow. It stung her face, blinded her, 
tore the breath from her lungs. The wind came 


AN IDEAL AND A REALITY 145 

from every direction at once. She could see 
nothing but the snow. 

She was not frightened at first. Home was 
not far off, and she knew the way. The prai- 
rie was merely romping with her. She had 
crossed the slough, and that was half-way home. 
There could be no real danger unless she re- 
crossed the slough and went off on the prairie. 
Out on the prairie it was not safe to venture from 
house to barn in a blizzard. Sometimes they 
wandered off and walked in a circle till they died, 
men, and animals too, and lay where they fell. 
Ole Peterson, at school, had no hands. The bliz- 
zard had taken them. His father and mother 
had started with him to drive to town five miles 
away. The blizzard caught. them. Three days 
afterward, when somebody found them. Ole was 
alive. His father and mother had wrapped him 
in their cloaks. Ole had no hands. And they 
found him only a few yards from his own home, 
after three days. Margie dropped to her knees. 
She was not praying. She was groping for some 
land-mark. She took off her mitten to feel 
what it was she touched. It was wheat stubble. 
She had recrossed . the slough. She was lost. 
She was all alone in the blizzard out on the prai- 
rie, and Ole had no hands. She got up and went 
on blindly. No, that was the way people began 
when they started to walk in circles. She knelt 
again. Was it wheat stubble or frozen grass? 


HEART OF A GIRL 


146 

The snow was drifting deep now. She could not 
find the stubble. After that it was a blind daze 
of horror. She was not getting warm and think- 
ing she was at home, as people did when they 
were freezing. Her feet were dead, but she was 
lost. The thing to do was to walk fast. You 
must walk fast. The snow under her foot slipped 
a little. There was ice under it. Here was the 
slough again. It was dark-gray, terrible white- 
dark now. She followed the slough. It led to a 
railway track in one direction. A sidewalk 
crossed it in the other. If your feet were dead 
you could crawl and feel with your knees. Even 
after your hands were dead, too, you could go 
on. It was not so cold now. 

They heard her stumble up the steps. Mother 
opened the door. She wanted to go in and sleep, 
but you could not do that. Your hands and feet 
must be waked first. 

After that Margie dreaded winter. The cold 
was not weather. It was a Giant Spirit of Evil 
that stalked the prairie. It was a thing. In 
Gordonsville the snow had been soft and 
friendly. On the prairie it was dry like sand. 
And all winter long it never rested. It drifted. 
The prairie was never quiet. The snow never 
stopped drifting. Margie was afraid of the 
cold as she might have been afraid of the dark. 

And in the summer, early in the summer, when 
the stalking cold was gone, and you could bear 


AN IDEAL AND A REALITY 147 

the endlessness of the prairie again, another Evil 
Thing came. The prairie was still one day, and 
hot. Stiller than ever before. Looking out the 
window she saw a strange and unnatural thing. 
The clouds were not moving all in the same 
direction. Something was wrong with the sky. 
There were two storms in it, and they were 
rushing toward each other. They met and boiled 
and turned a coppery green color, and where 
they met something narrow and long trailed 
down and dragged on the prairie. Mrs. Carlin 
saw it, and when her lips turned white they all 
knew what it was. One of the girls at school 
had been in the Minnesota cyclone last year. She 
was not hurt. She was at her aunt’s house, two 
blocks from home. Her mother and father were 
in the path of the cyclone. A cyclone path was 
so narrow. You might run and run the wrong 
way. It might skip you if you stood still. It 
might kill you if you did not run. People took 
quilts and went down cellar and crouched close 
to the wall, where they felt sure. Sometimes 
they were safer if they ran out and lay flat on 
the ground and held to tufts of weeds. 

The cyclone swayed. It was making up its 
mind whom it wanted to kill. It chose the river 
path. It went in leaps, and down in the town it 
took hold of the top of the iron open frame of 
the tower on which the great electric light was, 
and twisted it round and round. All it took from 


148 


HEART OF A GIRL 


the town was a tin roof. It cut a path across 
the river, and then it began to kill. 

Margie was afraid of the prairie. There was 
no place in it to hide. She wanted to stay in- 
doors and have four walls bound the world. 
There was no end to the prairie. 

And indoors* she spent most of the early sum- 
mer. She had a new friend now whom her 
mother did not know. Mrs. Hendricks was a 
newcomer in Adams City, and Mrs. Carlin was 
too busy with preparations for the new move to 
make her usual effort to know Margie’s friends. 
Margie had had Mrs. Hendricks at the Opera 
House, on the night of the panic, and Mrs. Hen- 
dricks had asked her to come to see her. 

“I know you like books,” she said. “Come 
and read mine.” 

Margie went. It was such a library as would 
have been remarkable anywhere. Mr. Hen- 
dricks, who was seldom at home, had been 
wealthy at one time, and books were his passion. 
Margie had no idea that some of the books were 
rare, and a few priceless. Mrs. Hendricks 
merely took her into the library and said : 

“Make yourself at home. I don’t care for 
books myself, but choose what you like. Come 
here and read, or take books home. The ones 
Mr. Hendricks will not lend have his book-plate 
in them.” 

The library was an upper room, running 


AN IDEAL AND A REALITY 149 

across the house. The book-shelves were built 
against the wall, from one side of the room to 
the other, twenty feet away. They reached to 
the ceiling, and they were crowded. It was a 
wonderland. At home one had to treat books 
with a certain respect. Mother had a way of 
saying: “You are skipping. That isn’t the way 
to read.” 

Here at Mrs. Hendricks’ you could skip all 
you wanted to, read the last chapter first, if you 
chose, and go through in jumps from one thing 
that interested you to another. Margie was ut- 
terly without conscience in the matter. The 
“Essay on Novels and Novel-Reading” did not 
trouble her at all. She forgot everything on 
earth but books. 

Wilhelm Meister was the first she read. She 
had heard her mother say that to understand it 
one must read it three times. Half of one time 
was all Margie tried. Mother read it in the 
original German. Probably that made it have 
more sense. Keats and Shelley and Swinburne 
and Jean Ingelow and Walt Whitman, Margie 
read, and a little of each of them stayed with 
her. The saying of Whitman, “Only them- 
selves understand themselves and the like of 
themselves, as souls only understand souls,” she 
never forgot. People were hard to understand, 
and birds of a feather did flock together in just 
that way. Rousseau’s “Confessions” she found 


150 


HEART OF A GIRL 


dull, but oh, what a treat “Evelina” was after 
you got used to the funny old letters, and stopped 
thinking the long s’s with the f sound I “The 
Three Musketeers” kept her spellbound all one 
long afternoon. 

It was pleasanter to read in the library than 
to take books home. They were heavy to carry, 
and out of five or six, you might not find 
any you cared for. That had happened when 
you carried Balzac home because “Cousin 
Bette” sounded like Cousin Betty at home, and 
when you began on “Pere Goriot” you saw at 
once that the whole lot were going to be harrow- 
ing and unpleasant, and full of things you did 
not understand. You never even opened 
“Cousin Bette” after that. “Vanity Fair” hap- 
pened to be missing from the set of Thackeray 
at home. Margie did not skip one word of it. 
Mr. Hendricks had written on the margin of the 
page where George lay dead with a bullet 
through his heart: “This is the most perfect 
English I know.” Margie never forgot the 
lines. 

She chanced on other books, too, that held her. 
There was a little of everything in Mr. Hen- 
dricks’ library. One book made an epoch. 

In the rearing of her daughters, Mrs. Carlin 
had not been reticent. Ignorance was not inno- 
cence to her, but there were many questions it 
had not occurred to Margie to ask her. The 


AN IDEAL AND A REALITY 1 5 1 

book answered them. She brought away from 
it an ideal of womanhood that made her nearer 
her mother than she had ever been before. It 
was a thing they talked of together in the twi- 
light. How much it meant to be a woman. This 
was why women must be good. God had given 
them for a beautiful and holy mission. 

Julia was in Westonborough when Margie 
left Adams City in August. There was no one 
else she cared to say good-bye to, and even Julia 
was not a heartache now. She was looking for- 
ward to a new and delightful experience. Mrs. 
Hendricks was going to join her sister and her 
sister’s husband in camp in the pine woods beside 
a Minnesota lake, and she asked Margie to go 
with her. They went two days before mother 
and Betty left Adams City. Margie was to join 
them at the station in the town near the lake as 
they passed through on their way to Nebraska. 

The camp was set on a little bluff at the edge 
of the lake, and it seemed like a bit out of a 
story to Margie. She found, too, that the Hal- 
dermans were in camp near. Mrs. Halderman 
and Johnny had been in the East for nearly a 
year, and Margie had not seen them for all that 
time. It was pleasant to go out on the lake with 
Johnny. The tall pines were more beautiful 
from the water. Beneath them one felt a little 
shut in, and Johnny had a fancy that they knew 
some terrible secret. It made them dark and 


152 


HEART OF A GIRL 


grim, and their whisper of it turned the birches 
white with fear and made them tremble. And 
the camp-fire at night, with the moon-trail on 
the lake. It was all a wonder to Margie. It 
made her ache with the longing to put it all into 
words. It was not merry. The pictures in the 
fire were of Gordonsville. The moon-trail led 
away into the country where home was. 

She and Mrs. Hendricks shared a tent to- 
gether, and when bedtime came on the first 
night Margie was glad of the shut-in feeling 
of it. The night was too wide to sleep in with- 
out something over your head. It stretched clear 
away to the prairie. And the cold toward morn- 
ing would be a thing like the prairie if one were 
outdoors. The wind in the pines was comfort- 
able to listen to under shelter. And the lapping 
of the waves on the pebbles was the talking of 
the moon-trail. 

All next day there were the woods and the 
lake to enjoy. They were merry things by day- 
light. 

In the afternoon Mrs. Hendricks said she had 
a headache. She did not come to the dining-tent 
for dinner. Her sister said she would sleep it 
off. She often had headaches, Margie knew. 
They lasted several days, sometimes. 

It was very late when Mrs. Hendricks’ sister 
and her husband left the camp-fire. They were 
pleasant people, who liked to joke and sing. 


AN IDEAL AND A REALITY 153 

Margie was content to sit and watch the pictures 
in the fire. 

When they said good-night she went into her 
tent and lit the candle. Mrs. Hendricks was 
lying on one of the cots. She had not made 
ready for bed yet. Margie spoke to her and she 
answered in a curious, muffled voice. She lay in 
a curious position, too, her head half off the cot. 
Margie was frightened. Mrs. Hendricks 
breathed so heavily, ^d her face was so red. She 
went to her and tried to rouse her. Mrs. Hen- 
dricks muttered. Margie’s foot touched some- 
thing beside the cot and overturned it. 

As she bent over Mrs. Hendricks and lifted 
her head to a more comfortable position, the 
truth fiashed over her. She knew what was in 
the bottle she had overturned. 

She had meant to call Mrs. Hendricks’ sister, 
but now the only thing in her mind was the im- 
pulse to run from this dreadful thing. She put 
on her traveling dress and flung her belongings 
into her traveling bag before she thought of how 
she was to get away. Where could she go? 

She remembered the Haldermans. She might 
go to their camp — but how could she tell this 
thing she wanted never to speak of, never to 
think of again? Not to Mrs. Halderman. Mrs. 
Halderman might speak of it to others — it was 
her way. Margie took her traveling bag and 
went out blindly. To get away was the one 


154 


HEART OF A GIRL 


thing. She saw a light in Johnny’s tent. He 
often sat up late reading. She went toward it. 
Johnny would not have to be told. 

She stumbled along through the trees to his 
tent. He heard her and came out. 

“Don’t ask me anything,” she said. “Take 
me to the station. I must go.” 

Johnny did not ask any questions. He knew. 
He did not try to stop her. He had no impulse 
but to help her get away. He took the bag from 
her and guided her through the woods to the 
road. It was near midnight now, and the sta- 
tion was three miles away. 

Margie could not talk. Her teeth chattered 
with cold. Over their heads the long streamers 
of the northern lights flickered up, pale, frozen, 
liquid fire, till the whole sky was alight. 

“Look, Margie!” said Johnny. “It’s like an 
umbrella.” 

The effort to distract her failed. She was say- 
ing over and over to herself : 

“I must get back to Mother.” 

She walked fast. The road was sandy, and 
the pines cast deep shadows. It was all horrible. 
She was chilled through, and the night and the 
northern lights and the long, sandy road seemed 
unreal, like a nightmare. 

There were no lights in the village as they 
passed. 

The station, too, was dark, except for a light 


AN IDEAL AND A REALITY 155 

in the telegraph office. Margie did not know 
what Johnny said to the telegraph operator. She 
did not think of it at all. 

The operator started a fire in the stove and 
lighted the lamp. It was August, but frost was 
in the air. Margie put on her cloak, and Johnny 
and the telegraph operator found something to 
serve as a pillow. She did not sleep till dawn. 
Johnny waked her before the early train came. 
He had brought her a sandwich and a cup of 
coffee, but she could not touch either. 

It was nearly noon when the train with 
Mother and Betty on it came. 

“You look all tired out, honey,” was the first 
thing Mrs. Carlin said. 

Margie could not bear to speak. The com- 
fort of being safe with Mother — oh, the com- 
fort of being safe with Mother ! 


CHAPTER XIII. 

IN SAFE PLACES. 

Margie^s first feeling toward Nebraska was 
that it was a place where one could feel perfectly 
safe. The town was many times larger than 
Adams City, and the houses were built nearer 
each other. The streets were paved, and at night 
there were a great many lamps. All this added 
to the feeling of security. The sun, too, seemed 
to rise in the east again, as it had done down 
home. Home always meant Gordonsville to 
Margie. She felt more friendly toward Betty 
than ever before. For the first time they had 
the same friends. Betty was so good. 

Margie felt that everywhere about the safe 
places in the world there were dark places full of 
dreadful things you didn’t understand, though 
you knew now you had never been fast. You 
wanted to be good now, like other girls, and stay 
in the safe places. Sometimes you would feel the 
vague evil of the world near you, in the same 
way that you heard something behind you when 
you came downstairs in the dark, or you felt un- 
easy about it as you felt uneasy about hanging 
your arm over the edge of the bed at night. 
Something under the bed might grab it. But 
156 


IN SAFE PLACES 


^57 

if you never looked back over your shoulder, and 
kept your arm under the cover, you would never 
know what the evil really was, and you could 
forget about it. Margie had no curiosity. She 
was only afraid that she would have to know 
some day what was outside the safe places. 

Betty always seemed safe. Margie supposed 
that her sister had never had a wrong impulse in 
her life. She was always unselfish, and Margie 
knew that she herself was considered a selfish 
nature. Betty told her so once when they fell 
out. The Carlins never quarreled among them- 
selves, but once Margie had done something 
which seemed to Betty utterly selfish. She had 
brought a book home from Mrs. Hendricks, 
read it, and carried it back without giving Betty 
a chance to read it. 

“I didn’t think about your wanting to read it,” 
had been her excuse. 

“You never do think of anybody but your- 
self,” was Betty’s answer, and it cut the deeper 
because it was the only really unkind thing Betty 
had ever said to her. It was true, and Margie 
felt the truth of it^ but she did not think she was 
selfish. If she had thought, she would have let 
Betty read the book. Mrs. Carlin’s unselfishness 
made it impossible for her to understand Mar- 
gie. She made no demands. Margie was glad 
to do whatever she was told to do, but did not 
see things to be done. It was not selfishness in 


HEART OF A GIRL 


158 

her. She was introspective. The formula for 
unselfishness had never been imparted to her, and 
she required formulae. She brought home 
flowers, or candy, or fruit and divided them, 
because she had been taught this. She dressed 
Betty’s hair when Betty was going out, because 
Betty asked her. It hurt her often, that in a 
family where she was asked to do so little, she 
should be considered selfish, because she did not 
do. It seemed to her unjust, because in the bot- 
tom of her heart she wanted to be unselfish. 

Betty never understood why Margie never 
wanted any of the family to come to school when 
she recited. The presence of Betty or her mother 
always embarrassed her. She had an unformu- 
lated fear that they would think her ridiculous. 
They might see that when she recited something 
thrilling, little shivers were playing down her 
back and in the roots of her hair. They made 
her feel foolish just as reciting to herself in the 
mirror did. The Carlins never spoke of their 
emotions nor of their affection. Margie was 
ashamed of emotion. It would never have oc- 
curred to her to speak of her feeling about twi- 
light. Mother often sang old songs in the dusk, 
but Margie never spoke of the twilight sound in 
them. She had never told her mother that she 
loved her and thought her beautiful. It made 
her feel foolish to think of saying such senti- 
mental things. She had one secret with her 


IN SAFE PLACES 


159 


father that they never spoke of. Once when she 
had been a very small child, and mother, who 
had been ill, had gone away, she herself was 
seized with severe illness. Every night when 
all the other people in the house were in bed, 
father came and sat beside her till morning. 
Nobody but Margie knew about it. She 
understood how he felt. He did not want to 
seem sentimental. Margie envied people who 
could gush, though she was often ashamed for 
them. 

It was easy to feel like other girls In Ne- 
braska. Mrs. Carlin’s cousin, John Holyoke, 
had a daughter a little older than Margie. Ella 
Holyoke at once assumed toward Margie the at- 
titude Margie had assumed toward Julia. 
Friends were ready-made. There was no mak- 
ing a place for one’s self, no getting acquainted. 
Ella had a niche ready for Margie, and it was 
a comfortable niche. There were friends for 
Betty, too, and people came to see mother almost 
as they had done in Gordonsville. 

Ella thought the right things for girls to 
think, read the right books, had the right man- 
ners. She was so safe. The girls she knew 
were all of her kind. They were friendly and 
decorous, and it struck terror to Margie at times 
to imagine what a gulf would separate her from 
them if they knew all. They were so careful 
about what they said and did. 


i6o HEART OF A GIRL 

Ella made a point of never saying an unkind 
thing of anyone. Margie’s habit was to say ex- 
actly what she happened to think, and it did not 
trouble her at all to remember that she had been 
good friends with Minnie Hewett after saying 
all sorts of mean things about her to Julia. Min- 
nie did not know that she had said them, and 
she had changed her mind, anyway, afterward. 
Margie felt that if she had been sincere and hon- 
orable like Ella, she would not have acted in that 
way, but it was a comfort to her to say mean 
things when she was out of temper. Naturally, 
you said things about people behind their backs 
that you wouldn’t say to their faces. You didn’t 
want to hurt their feelings, even if you were mad 
at them. Ella once said something mildly un- 
kind about Bessie Pursell, and felt so badly about 
it afterward that she went to Bessie to tell her 
of it, and to beg her pardon. It was noble of 
Ella, but Bessie never liked her afterward. Mar- 
gie thought this perfectly natural of Bessie. She 
told Ella one had no right to scour off one’s con- 
science that way. She thought Ella ought to 
have kept still. Ella said keeping still made her 
feel mean. Margie thought she ought to feel 
mean. She sometimes felt mean herself, but not 
about saying things about people, because what 
she said she believed to be true when she said it. 

Ella had been very carefully brought up, 
and had never gone anywhere with a boy in 


IN SAFE PLACES 


i6i 


her life. She never sat up late to finish a book. 
She was one of those persons to whom the 
thought that the book will still be there in the 
morning is a reason for leaving off at the end of 
a chapter. Margie swallowed books whole and 
read everything she came across. Ella kept a 
list of the books she read, and wrote her opin- 
ions of them in her diary. She read one really 
good book a month. 

Ella was a church woman. Margie liked 
to go to church with her. The Holyokes were 
Episcopalians, and the Carlins were nominally 
Presbyterians, but Margie had always gone 
to whatever church she liked. She liked the 
good feeling church gave her, the splendid 
sound of the prayers, the rising and kneeling, 
the effect of the rector’s gown. She liked the 
sermon, too, because during a sermon she could 
think so much better than at any other time of 
things to write. She never really heard a ser- 
mon. Ella thought some of the rector’s sermons 
so helpful. This was Greek to Margie. It was 
like the way people had of talking about laying 
all your troubles on God. God had never been 
a help to Margie in time of trouble. She told 
Him about her heartaches, but the ache was 
never any the better for it, except that the telling 
itself was a comfort. She had gone to a revival 
once in Adams City. The evangelist had told 
about how wicked he used to be. 


i 62 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“But now,” he said, “I am happy, for Christ 
has taken all my sins away.” 

Margie wondered how the people he had 
sinned against felt. How could he be happy if, 
as he said, he had broken his mother’s heart? 
What good would it do to be forgiven unless you 
could forget what you had done? The revival 
had frankly disgusted her. It was so undigni- 
fied. Nobody but a coarse man would talk about 
his mother’s heart, anyway. Ella’s religion was 
soothing and pleasant, if you didn’t stop to think. 
If you thought, you couldn’t say the creed, be- 
cause you couldn’t understand it, and you 
couldn’t say you believed a thing unless you 
knew what it meant. She tried to explain her 
point of view to Ella when Ella urged her to 
join the church. 

“Can you understand why two and two are 
four?” Ella asked. 

“No,” said Margie; “they just are.” 

“Well, then, why need you expect to under- 
stand the mystery of the Trinity?” 

“But you can see that two and two are four, 
and you can’t see how Three can be One.” 

“Aren’t mother and father and I three per- 
sons, and one family?” Ella demanded. 

“Yes, but neither of you is ever the other.” 

“We are one in spirit always,” said Ella. 
“Oneness of spirit is what the Trinity means.” 

Margie knew that Ella and her mother had 


IN SAFE PLACES 


163 

disagreed that morning before church, but she 
did not like to mention it. The reservation de- 
prived her of her only argument. 

Ella was extremely progressive, and not at all 
hidebound about religion. She impressed that on 
Margie. She did not believe that the heathen who 
had never heard the Truth would be damned. 
Margie did not believe so either, but she did 
not consider the idea an evidence of broad- 
mindedness. It was merely the way of thinking 
that made you most comfortable. Ella believed, 
of course, that people who had a chance to know 
what was right and didn’t do it would be pun- 
ished. Anybody could be good if he wanted to. 
She herself had had to struggle with a very bad 
temper. 

“But suppose you hadn’t wanted to struggle ?” 
said Margie. “Could you make yourself want 
to struggle if you didn’t want to struggle?” 

“You reason in a circle,” said Ella. 

“I wasn’t reasoning — I was asking. I was 
wondering what makes some people want to 
struggle and others not want to. Who’s to blame 
if they haven’t the wish to be good?” 

“They are,” said Ella. “They harden their 
hearts.” 

“What makes God let them do it?” Margie 
cried. 

This was too much for Ella. There was that 
in her eye that warned Margie. If you wanted 


HEART OF A GIRL 


164 

to be like other people you must be careful what 
you said. In order to be near you must be aloof 
in spirit. You must not shock people. 

One had to be more careful with Ella’s 
friends than with Ella. One was always in dan- 
ger of being thought queer. And then at times 
one felt as if people were daring one to be queer. 
The Gordons never took a dare. Why in the 
world shouldn’t one say what one thought? One 
could at home. Mother didn’t think you were 
queer because you said the days of the week 
came in strips, marked off Into different sized 
oblongs, and no two the same color. But the 
girls at school said, “The Idea!” and looked at 
you as If they were all together, and you all 
alone. Didn’t everybody see a picture of the 
days of the week ? 

And how often you had to check yourself when 
you were in the midst of some account of some- 
thing you had done in Dakota. Poker — suppose 
you told them you knew how to play that ? They 
couldn’t understand that you had never gambled. 
Ella belonged to a club that gave parties In a 
hall — but Ella never danced more than twice In 
an evening with any young man. She said a 
young girl had to be so careful. What was the 
good of the whole thing? 

“I wear a mask,” Margie wrote In her diary. 
“I smile, I seem to be happy; but under It all 
there abides my real self. I am restless. I am 


IN SAFE PLACES 165 

alone. Oh, this wild, wind-swept emptiness of 
soul!” 

She had no idea what she meant by wind-swept 
emptiness of soul, but it sounded as nearly like 
the way she felt as anything she could think of. 
She felt she was not understood. This made her 
feel superior. She felt, too, that she did not 
understand other people, and this made her 
wretched. 

She was writing a great deal now — ^writing 
in the erotic style which was then in fash- 
ion — stories and poems of passion, of start- 
ling baldness, all evolved from her innocence. 
She wrote, too, articles for the school paper in 
the Bill Nye vein. She thought of herself as a 
cynic and as an enthusiast. She was either per- 
fectly happy or altogether miserable. 

School was pleasant. The big building on the 
hill gave her the far outlook she loved, from 
every window. She liked the Latin teacher im- 
mensely. They read Csesar that year, but a few 
of the boys and girls who liked Latin had an 
extra hour a week to read with the teacher books 
not in the course. Margie read the extra Latin 
from choice, but this did not prevent her from 
talking about Caesar behind his back. She hap- 
pened not to like the teacher of ancient history 
because the lady had an offensive habit of pro- 
nouncing r’s at the ends of the words that ended 
in a’s. And one day she went to the class with 


i66 


HEART OF A GIRL 


an overwhelming desire to be hateful. The 
question asked her was, “Who was Julius 
Caesar?” And with feeble maliciousness she an- 
swered, “The worst swelled head that ever 
lived.” It was merely her way of making a face 
at the teacher. It was also a sign that being 
good after Ella’s pattern was beginning to wear 
on her. 

That afternoon, after school, Bessie Pursell, 
whom she knew slightly, came to take her driv- 
ing. Bessie was not one of Ella’s intimates, but 
she was as proper and ladylike as any of them 
could be. 

They talked about school. Bessie said she 
thought she was getting a firmer grasp on mathe- 
matics than ever before. 

“Geometry trains the mind so well,” she said. 

“I think it tends to form character,” said 
Margie. 

“So do I,” Bessie agreed. There was a pause 
after that. 

“Have you read Ben-Hur?” Bessie asked. 
Margie had a prejudice against Ben-Hur. She 
thought the figure of Jesus in it undignified, and 
she had heard the chariot race recited too often. 

“It’s a very fine book,” she said. 

“I think so, too,” said Bessie. “I think we 
ought to choose only the best books to read — 
like Ben-Hur, and, well — the Elsie Dinsmore 
books.” 


IN SAFE PLACES 167 

“So do I,” Margie assented. “Good books 
are very beneficial.” 

“I think so, too,” said Bessie. “I am reading 
‘At the Mercy of Tiberius’ now.” 

“Do you like it?” 

“It’s a very. fine book.” 

“I should like to read it. Are you fond of 
Dickens’ works ?” 

“I have only read a few, but I am fond of 
‘Nicholas Nickleby.’ It seems to me very 
good.” 

“It did to me, too,” said Margie. What 
would there be to talk of after they had ex- 
hausted literature ? 

“It was very kind of you to take me driving,” 
she said. “I am fond of horses.” 

It was not true, for Margie was afraid of 
horses, but it was something one ought to say. 

“So am I,” said Bessie. “Horses are so in- 
telligent. I like to take people driving who can 
talk about books.” 

Just then, on a street corner, they saw a young 
man. He swung his hat off the length of 
his arm. 

“My! He’s a jim-dandy!” said Margie be- 
fore she thought. The effect on Bessie was 
astonishing. 

“Why, are you like that?” she said. “Here 
I’ve been scared to death of you. I was afraid 
to say a word for fear I’d shock you.” 


i68 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Were you?” cried Margie. “Why, Vm all 
choked up with things I didn’t dare say.” 

Bessie giggled gleefully. 

“Let’s go back and get that boy and go on 
a regular jamboree,” she said. 

They caught him and put him on the back 
seat of the cart, and Bessie drove downtown 
and found another boy to put beside him, or, 
rather, to put beside herself, for she moved Mar- 
gie to the back seat, and off they went, giggling 
and chattering, not men of the world and women 
who had been fast, but good, merry and utterly 
happy boys and girls. 

They drove by Ella’s house, too, and Ella 
saw them. Precisely what Julia had done to 
Margie, Margie did to Ella, and it never trou- 
bled her a whit. Ella was so tiresome, and so 
mean about always wanting you to have no best 
friend but her. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


A NAME ON A FAN. 

Bessie was not adorable like Julia, but Mar- 
gie found her immensely amusing. Julia’s co- 
quetry had been unconscious. Bessie’s was pre- 
meditated. Margie knew her for a month be- 
fore she discovered that Bessie’s hair was not 
naturally curly. 

“Why, I thought you brushed the long hairs 
smooth,” she said, as she saw Bessie set to work 
with the curling tongs, “and the little short ones 
just curled of themselves.” 

“They’re all as straight as the line of duty,” 
said Bessie. “I don’t curl any but the short ones. 
That’s what makes it look natural. Ella crimps 
all her long hair, and there are always nine 
straight ends in front of each ear. They’re a 
give-away. Ella doesn’t understand the science 
of it.” 

“The boys don’t like Ella,” said Margie. 
“You can tell they don’t by the way they speak 
of her intellect.” 


169 


HEART OF A GIRL 


170 

“I’d just as soon be cross-eyed as Intellectual,” 
said Bessie. “Ella knows things, but she hasn’t 
any sense. She always Informs people of things. 
Men just hate that. They want you to ask them 
questions.” 

“I heard you asking Breck Carr to show you 
how to dance the York,” said Margie. “I just 
saved myself In time from saying you and I’d 
been practicing It for a week.” 

“My! Suppose you’d told!” giggled Bessie. 

“Well, I didn’t. I didn’t say a word when 
he told you you learned It faster than any other 
girl he ever knew.” 

“I had on new slippers that night,” said 
Bessie. 

“And you made me stick at the piano all 
evening.” 

“Well, you’ve got good hands,” said Bessie. 
“Playing shows them off. You know It, too. 
You’re always talking about palmistry.” 

“You told me to talk to Fred about It — you 
know you did.” 

“I’m teaching you things,” chuckled Bessie. 
“The only trouble with you Is that you will 
argue.” 

“Well, If I know a thing’s so I’m going to 
stick to It.” 

“That’s the very time to let go. Where’s 
my powder rag? Did you ever notice that Ella 
never puts powder back of her ears?” 


A NAME ON A FAN 


171 

“I didn’t know you powdered,” said Margie. 
“Your nose never looks powdery, and Ella’s 
doesJ’ 

“That’s the difference between Ella and me. 
Ella hasn’t a particle of sense.” 

Bessie and Margie had a gay time of it after 
that, but in Bessie’s good times there was no 
hint of anything that anybody’s mother would 
not be pleased to hear. Her wildest recklessness 
consisted in driving downtown in the surrey in 
the afternoon and passing the general offices of 
the railway just at the time when the young men 
came out. Sometimes she and Margie drove 
around several blocks in order to arrive on time, 
and they giggled. But when they passed the 
office building, and the boys they knew ran out 
to speak to them, Bessie always said, “Why, I 
hadn’t any idea it was so late.” 

Bessie liked all the boys, and the two who 
scrambled into the surrey first — sometimes three 
managed to get in, and sometimes even four — 
were the ones she took for a drive. Most of the 
boys she knew were Kentuckians with very strict 
ideas of what was due a lady. Theynever smoked 
nor spoke of drinking before Bessie and Margie. 
They liked to be devoted, but they did not make 
love. 

Bessie was not sentimental. She was merry 
and feather-headed and utterly care-free. She 
laughed a great deal, never very loud, and 


172 


HEART OF A GIRL 


never for any particular reason. Being sixteen 
meant to her being happy. When you were 
twenty, possibly, you might be serious and think 
about loving somebody — somebody your father 
liked, somebody who could take care of you well, 
but at sixteen you merely had fun. The more 
boys you had around the more fun. Margl'e, 
for the first time in her life, felt herself like 
other girls. The boys called her Miss Margie, 
and pretended to be a little afraid of her, but 
they were all such safe people, well-bred and 
good. 

Margie never went to church with Ella now. 
She went to the Presbyterian church with Bessie 
on Sunday evenings, and they had to tuck their 
heads down often to keep from giggling out 
aloud. Bessie’s father always went with them, 
but he was absent-minded. After church he 
walked out a step ahead of them, with his hands 
behind him, looking thoughtful. Bessie dawdled 
just a moment, and then the boys outside the door 
fairly broke their necks to be first to ask to walk 
home with her. Fred V/inthrop usually walked 
with Margie, but not always, for the other boys 
were keen about cutting each other out. And the 
boys who were left always acted broken-hearted 
and said Miss Bessie certainly was cruel. Some- 
times, too, the other boys would scurry around by 
a side street and reach Bessie’s home before even 
her father did. Sunday evening was the time 


A NAME ON A FAN 


173 


when they made calls. Bessie and Margie never 
walked home fast, but they always came by the 
way Bessie’s father took. There was nothing in 
it all but the unshadowed good times of boys and 
girls, such times as Margie had never known 
before. 

Ella was the only cloud in their sky. She dis- 
approved Bessie’s frivolity, but insisted on cul- 
tivating her, in the hope of exerting a good in- 
fluence. “Cultivating” was the word that she 
used, and Bessie promptly named her “The Har- 
row.” She never failed to ask Margie and 
Bessie to all the parties she gave. 

“Well, you’ve done it now,” Bessie said, re- 
proachfully, after Margie had accepted for them 
both Ella’s invitation to a literary and musical 
evening. “We’ve got to waste a whole evening 
being bumps on a log.” 

“You’ll be all right. She asked you to bring 
Breck Carr,” said Margie. 

“Yes, and she’ll snap him up the minute he 
gets there and put me up on the mourners’ bench 
with one of those pet ganders of hers.” 

Ella’s “pet ganders” were most exemplary 
young men, but Bessie found them dull. 

“You can sit on the stairs with him,” Margie 
suggested. 

“Are you going with Fred?” Bessie asked. 

“No; he isn’t invited. Ella’s going to send 
her new Mr. Tompkins after me.” 


174 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Bessie giggled. 

“I tell you what let’s do,” she said. “Let’s 
all go late and sit on the stairs together. We 
can talk there.” 

“All right,” Margie agreed; “but I don’t 
know a thing to say to the man.” 

“You won’t have to talk. Just look soulful, 
and start In by telling him he looks like an 
actor.” 

Margie giggled. 

“I will,” she said. “I’ll just wind him up 
and let him spout.” 

“Do it,” said Bessie. “I dare you to flirt 
with him. He never did anything so reckless 
as sitting on stairs in all his life.” 

They timed their arrival at the party so ac- 
curately, Bessie and Breck calling for Margie 
and Mr. Tompkins, that they could not enter the 
drawing-room without interrupting the pro- 
gramme. Clearly, sitting on the stairs was nec- 
essary. 

“Start In,” Bessie whispered, as she seated her- 
self a few steps above Margie. Margie started. 

“Do you know,” she said, “the first time I saw 
you I askedMIss Holyoke if you were an actor?” 

Mr. Tompkins beamed. 

“I have been told I resemble Edwin Booth,” 
he said complacently. “In the East I used to 
take part In the entertainments of our dramatic 
club, and I may say I hope — without appearing 


A NAME ON A FAN 


175 

to praise myself unduly — that I was not alto- 
gether bad.” 

“I should think you would do splendidly,” 
said Margie. “You have such a good voice.” 

Another poke from Bessie. 

“Oh, I don’t know as to that,” beamed Mr. 
Tompkins, “but I am able to make myself heard. 
Miss Holyoke has asked me to give a reading 
later in the evening.” 

“I’m so glad,” said Margie. “I’m dying to 
hear some one from the East recite. My father 
is an Eastern man.” 

“Ah,” said Mr. Tompkins, approvingly, 
“that’s why you remind me so much of Eastern 
girls. Most Western girls, you know, are so 
boisterous. I’ve seen them do so many things 
one doesn’t do at all in the East.” 

“I think the girls out here are spoiled by too 
much attention,” said Margie. “It m.akes them 
frivolous.” 

“You’re quite right, quite right,” murmured 
Mr. Tompkins. “Modern society is hopelessly 
frivolous.” 

“I suppose it’s worse here than in the East, 
isn’t it?” 

“Very much so. That is why it is such a 
pleasure to me to find some one to whom I can 
talk sensibly. Life out here is very crude, but, 
you know, so many Westerners take it amiss if 
one says so.” 


HEART OF A GIRL 


176 

“I don’t see why they should,” said Margie, 
leaning back against Bessie’s toe. “I think we 
ought to be glad to have people from the East 
come out here and tell us our faults. We ought 
to enjoy it.” 

“You’re quite right, quite right. It’s the only 
way in which the West can ever improve. May 
I ask you if you are at home on any especial 
day?” 

“I’m home almost every day, unless I’m in 
school,” said Margie. “Why?” 

“I was going to ask if I might be permitted 
to call, and continue our acquaintance. I find 
it is the Western custom for a man to ask per- 
mission. In the East, of course, the mother of 
the young lady usually extends the invitation. 
Out here a man might wait forever to be asked.” 

“That’s so,” said Margie, maliciously. “A 
great many Eastern men notice that.” 

“Quite a few of them have mentioned it to 
me. May I hope, then, to see you at some future 
time? I fear I must excuse myself now and 
find Miss Holyoke.” 

“My mother is usually glad to have our 
friends come in at any time,” said Margie. 

“Thank you so much. I shall give myself the 
pleasure of calling very soon.” 

Mr. Tompkins rose and descended to the 
drawing-room. 

“I declare. Miss Margie,” said Breck Carr, 


A NAME ON A FAN 


177 


“if he’d talked any longer about the West like 
he did I certainly would have kicked him. If 
he’d opened his mouth about Kentucky I’d have 
lifted him clear through the front door.” 

“He meant well,” said Margie. “I used to 
hear Yankees talk that way in Dakota. They 
don’t know any better.” 

“They act like a lot of Columbuses,” said 
Bessie. “There was a man at our house once, 
and when he saw my great grandfather’s por- 
trait he said, ‘Why, I didn’t know Westerners 
had ancestors.’ ” 

They all laughed gleefully at that. 

“If he comes to see you,” Bessie went on, 
“just run out the back way and down the alley 
to my house. I’ll come over and talk to him.” 

Mr. Tompkins took steps for the continuing 
of their acquaintance no later than the next day. 
He wrote Margie a note. Bessie was with her 
when the postman brought it, and they read it 
together. Mr. Tompkins asked permission to 
call on the next Sunday. 

“I hope you will not misunderstand me if I 
tell you of my engagement to a young lady in 
the East,” he said. “I am sure it need be no 
bar to our further acquaintance.” 

Bessie shrieked with laughter. 

“He doesn’t want you to cherish any false 
hopes, Margie,” she said. “Oh, this is too good 
to keep.” 


178 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“If you tell, Bess, I’ll never speak to you 
again. The miserable little prig I’’ 

“And you led him on! You charmed him! 
You just yearned to have him civilize you !” 

Margie laughed in spite of herself. 

“There’s a postscript,” said Bessie. “ ‘May I 
ask if you are any relation to the Carlins in my 
native city, Greensburg, Ohio?’ Oh, my good- 
ness, Margie, and he said he was from the East !” 

“Ella said he was a Harvard man. I nat^ 
urally thought he was a Yankee,” laughed Mar- 
gie. “Oh, how awfully crude we must seem 
compared to Greensburg, Ohio.” 

“You ought to put it in your diary,” said 
Bessie. “He’ll be a lesson to you not to be so 
fascinating. You’ve got to let him come and 
you’ve got to be nice to him. If you don’t, you 
know, he’ll think you’re broken-hearted over his 
engagement. You’ve got to let him tag every- 
where you go after this.” 

“It’s your fault,” said Margie. “You put me 
up to it, and you ought to come over and help 
entertain him.” 

“Not me,” said Bessie. “I tell you what — 
just say you have an engagement for next Sun- 
day. Maybe the cars will run over him before 
Sunday after that. Cars are so crude out West, 
you know.” 

Mr. Tompkins was not easily discouraged, 
however. Deprived of the pleasure of a Sunday 


A NAME ON A FAN 


179 


evening visit, he arranged a boating party for 
the following Friday. Mrs. Holyoke was asked 
to chaperone it, Bessie was to take Breck Carr 
again, Mr. Tompkins elected himself to be Mar- 
gie’s escort, and, at Margie’s suggestion, invited 
Fred Shelby to make up the third man of the 
party. 

The lake was one of those “cut-offs” so com- 
mon along the Missouri. The lazy river, in one 
of its frequent efforts to shorten its journey to 
the sea, had cut a new channel across a bend, 
leaving the old channel scarcely more than a 
muddy pond. By moonlight, however, it was 
beautiful. 

The boat landing lay half a mile beyond the 
end of the street-car line. When the party left 
the car, Mrs. Holyoke took command. She took 
Fred Shelby, too, and Ella appropriated Breck 
Carr. This left Mr. Tompkins, in high feather, 
bringing up the rear with Margie and Bessie. 

“I am a thorn between two roses,” he said, 
jocularly, as they set out. Bessie and Margie 
were too disgusted to answer. Not till they 
reached the pier did Bessie have an opportunity 
to express herself. 

“If you let Mrs. Holyoke put me in Mr. 
Tompkins’ boat,” she said to Margie, “I’ll 
chuck him overboard and hold his head under 
water. I want a chance to say something to 
Breck Carr.” 


i8o 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Maybe we’ll all be in the same boat,” whis- 
pered Margie. 

This was not to be. Mrs. Holyoke took 
Bessie and Breck in one boat, and Margie went 
in another with Ella and Mr. Tompkins and 
Fred. As guest of honor, she sat in the bow, 
and as Ella insisted on having one of the two 
pairs of oars, Fred was put in the stern to steer. 
Mr. Tompkins and Ella enjoyed themselves im- 
mensely. Fred whistled morosely, and Margie 
raged. In the other boat Mrs. Holyoke monop- 
olized the conversation. It was a most painful 
evening for Margie and Bessie. 

When they returned to the pier Bessie gave 
Margie a vicious pinch. 

“Do something to get Mrs. Holyoke away 
from Breck or I’ll kill you,” she said. “Make 
her go home with you and Mr. Tompkins.” 

She gave Margie a push. A brilliant idea 
occurred to Margie. She sat down suddenly. 

“Oh,” she said, “I’ve turned my ankle.” 

The attentive Mr. Tompkins sprang at once 
to her assistance, and lifted her to her feet. 

“It isn’t very bad,’^ she said. “I can walk, I 
think, if I have somebody to lean on.” 

“Lean on me,” said Mr. Tompkins. 

Margie limped a few steps, leaning on Mr. 
Tompkins’ arm. Then she reached a hand to 
Mrs. Holyoke’s shoulder. 

“I’m afraid I’ll need two people,” she said. 


A NAME ON A FAN i8i 

“Let me help,” said Fred, eagerly, offering 
his arm. 

“Won’t we miss the last car?” asked Bessie. 
“Hadn’t somebody better go on ahead and tell 
them to wait? They’d wait if they knew some- 
body was hurt.” 

“Fm so glad you thought of it. Miss Bessie,” 
said Mrs. Holyoke. “Ella, you and Mr. Carr 
walk on and tell them to wait.” 

Margie restrained a giggle at the failure of 
Bessie’s scheme. 

“You’d better have my shawl, Margie,” 
Bessie said. “You might take cold.” 

She laid the shawl about Margie’s shoulders. 

“Chuckle-head !” she whispered, disgustedly. 

“Ouch!” cried Margie. 

“Did you turn the foot again?” inquired Mr. 
Tompkins. 

“Oh, no,” said Margie, struggling with a 
laugh. “It doesn’t hurt if I don’t bear on it too 
heavily.” 

She chose the foot nearest Mr. Tompkins as 
the injured one, and leaned on Mr. Tompkins’ 
arm so heavily that conversation on his part was 
difficult. He mopped his brow with his free 
hand from time to time. Margie could not help 
laughing when she caught sight of the car, with 
Ella and Breck waiting. 

“I just thought of a poem,” she explained: 
‘Two stern-faced men set out from Lynne,’ you 


i 82 


HEART OF A GIRL 


know, ‘and Eugene Aram walked between with 
gyves upon his wrist.’ ” 

“I see,” said Mr. Tompkins. “Gyves, I 
fancy, though, did not mean merely retaining 
hands. It meant handcuffs.” 

Mr. Tompkins was breathing heavily. He 
was not athletic, and Margie’s weight on his 
arm was by no means light. Further, the even- 
ing was sultry. 

He met Margie and Bessie in the street next 
day. There was no trace of a limp in Margie’s 
walk, and there was meaning in Bessie’s grin. 
Mr. Tompkins was not utterly dense. The ac- 
quaintance was not continued, but Mr. Tomp- 
kins withdrew with colors flying. He told Ella 
that in the East careful mothers did not permit 
girls of sixteen to receive visits from young men, 
and Ella repeated the saying to Margie and 
Bessie. 

Margie had forgotten her diary and her am- 
bition. When she remembered them again, the 
good times were only memories. Fred Winthrop 
had been awfully fond of her. The words were 
his. And Margie had said that she liked him 
ever and ever so much. Love was a word neither 
spoke, but Fred kissed her once. It was an af- 
fection that belonged wholly to being sixteen. 
Margie never thought to analyze it nor to write 
about it. Fred was simply Fred. They belonged 
to each other, but Margie never thought of the 


A NAME ON A FAN 


183 

future. She scarcely thought of herself at all. 
Living was so pleasant that there was nothing to 
think about. She was perfectly happy. 

Fred always came to see her on Sunday even- 
ings, and they walked over to Bessie’s. One 
Sunday evening Fred did not come, nor the next. 
There was no spoken understanding between 
them. Margie did not dream of writing to him to 
ask an explanation. The third Sunday she went 
over to Bessie’s with somebody else. Fred came 
in later. He was there when someone asked 
Bessie to sing. Bessie’s favorite song was about 
“You never come to see me now,” and each verse 
ended, “Won’t you tell me why?” Margie 
played her accompaniment. Margie had never 
had a music lesson, but Betty had told her how 
to read music when she was no more than seven. 
She read rapidly, but read music as she read 
books, skipping whatever was dull or difficult. 
She did not read quite like other people. She 
had no idea, unless she stopped to count up, 
which note was for B or G. The score looked 
to her like the keyboard, and she played what 
she saw. Her accompaniments were easy to sing 
to. But she played “Won’t you tell me why?” 
that day very fast, and said it was a silly song. 
Afterward Fred looked as if he were going to 
ask to walk home with her, but he saw that she 
had already some one to take her home. Margie 
never saw him again. 


HEART OF A GIRL 


184 

Early in the autumn Mr. Carlin made another 
move. This time he went to Centropolis, one 
of the largest cities in the Northwest, to be an 
editorial writer on the Sentinel. Margie hated 
knowing about money matters, and knew very 
little of the family plans. She was apathetic 
about going — apathetic about everything. She 
had sat by her window upstairs so many Sunday 
evenings, hoping Fred would come. At seven 
she was sure he was coming, and hurried to put 
on the frock he liked best. At half-past seven 
every step that drew near made her stop breath- 
ing for an instant. At a quarter past eight her 
hands felt cold. At eight-thirty — surely that 
was somebody turning in the gate — no, and after 
half-past eight it is too late to expect anybody. 
Things seemed dull to Margie, but she did not 
quite know why. She knew by and bye that 
Fred had gone West. She opened her diary 
then, but she never wrote Fred’s name. She 
wrote merely a plain account of her everyday 
doings. 

“We are going to Centropolis,” she wrote. 
“I don’t belong anywhere, now, and I think I’d 
like to see new faces. I want to learn to be a 
writer. I want to make something of myself.” 

A little later she wrote : 

“I think I have never been very happy. So 
many things have disappointed me. Life is 
rather a failure. I shall be glad when I am old.” 


A NAME ON A FAN 


185 

A day or two before she went away she packed 
away in a little doll’s trunk which held her 
treasures — Julia’s letters, her diary, the things 
she had written, some new souvenirs. There 
was a paper fan Fred had written his name on, 
a newspaper he had held and turned in his hands 
all one evening, a dance programme with his 
name on it twice. She had no picture of him. 
She did not know where he was, but she kept the 
fan longer than she kept Julia’s letters. 

It was a long time before she talked about 
Fred to herself. She liked to look out at the 
stars at night, but she did not separate the 
thought of Fred from the general dreariness of 
life. She wanted to write so that Fred would 
see her name. And the first verses that were 
printed — not by any means the first she sent to 
editors — were about the fan. 

“You wrote your name across my fan. 

One August day, with jest and laughter. 
Across its scenes of far Japan, 

Its white and gold, with careless hand. 

You wrote your name across my fan. 

“You wrote your name, as on my fan. 

For all the years that should come after. 

In those brief days of summer’s span. 

Across my life, with careless hand. 

You wrote your name, as on my fan.” 


i86 


HEART OF A GIRL 


She did not consider whether the poem was 
good- or not. It was very easy to write. She 
wanted Fred to see it. 

It was about this time, too, that she began 
really to write letters to Major Winchester, in 
Gordonsville. She had sent him little notes from 
time to time, thanking him for the gifts he sent 
her, but now she began to write to him as she 
wrote in her diary. He was a man who had 
traveled and studied and suffered and fought. 
An old bachelor, and Margie scarcely remem- 
bered how he looked. Major Winchester never 
minded what one said. In answer to a letter in 
which she had expressed correct sentiments on 
every subject she could think of, he wrote: 

‘‘I reckon you were born right, but don’t you 
rebel at something, hate something terribly, want 
something awfully that you can’t have ? For me, 
I am not at all satisfied. Friendship is too fine 
a thing to find, and God too far away to be 
company. This world is unsatisfying and the 
next uncertain. Tell me what you are. Tell 
the things you say when you talk to yourself. 
What we say to ourselves is the most valuable 
conversation we can have in this world, or In 
any world. What we say to ourselves, the vast 
oversoul in which we live and move and have 
our being, tells us everything If we have only 
ears to hear. ‘ 


A NAME ON A FAN 


187 

“You say you would like to see the mountains. 
Why, you will never see anything more sublime 
than what you see every day. Behold the blue 
dome, the stars, the sun and moon, night and 
morning, the prairie. I saw the sun rise out of 
the prairie which we call the ocean many a morn- 
ing. God, and me to see Him, it lies in my 
memory. 

“When you have done your level best — ^not 
what some one tells you, but what you think, 
then comfort and content will come in your soul. 
What each of us individually thinks is right, is 
right. There is no higher law. All ethics, and 
religion and sentiment, reverence and devotion 
are included in this, all-souled submission to what 
we think is right. Don’t surrender. Keep an 
almighty and magnificent will of your own. God 
is all-splendor, energy and decision. We belong 
to Him. He belongs to us. Without us. He 
can do nothing. Without Him, we can do noth- 
ing.” 

Margie told him what she was. She did not 
tell one side of a story as she did in her diary. 
She was as honest with Major Winchester as 
with herself. He was the only person to whom 
she spoke about Fred. 

“You have been hit,” he wrote. “Well, it 
can’t be helped. Put the cry into stories. Ap- 
plause, fame, success are something one must 


i88 


HEART OF A GIRL 


have. You have capital laid up. So much is 
sure. Nevertheless, it is a very serious matter. 
The cry is in everybody’s heart, my dear. Rob- 
ert Ingersoll dedicates a volume to his brother, 
from whom he heard the first applause. And 
even Christ — I doubt if He would have made 
His work had it not been for His disciples who 
loved to hear His stories. The unconscious, 
subtle flattery of those we like is necessary to 
our growth. 

“It is the anniversary of the death of my dog 
Brickm, ten years ago. You could not know him 
if I wrote forever. The regard of a dog for his 
master is something fine beyond philosophy, and 
curious. He does not work, he only plays, and 
some one must work to find him in food, but one 
look from his trusting soul repays that debt. 

“Tell me your ideal of a man if you dare. 
Who’s afraid? And I will tell you what a 
woman is, if she only knew it. Take the hit, 
take it. Take the cry. Afterward go out and 
fight.” 

It was Major Winchester who helped her to 
learn to live, as he had helped her to learn to 
count. The thought of Fred — or the feeling, 
for it was scarcely a conscious thought — did not 
make her sorry for herself, as her other troubles 
had done. It was not Fred who had struck her, 
it was the world. 


A NAME ON A FAN 189 

“Fm going to strike back now, God,” she said. 
“Fm going to be somebody.” 

She had little personal regret at leaving 
Bessie. The good times were spoiled now. She 
must get even with the world, but she never 
blamed Fred. 


CHAPTER XV. 


GLENDA. 

Centropolis was a great deal larger than 
any of the other places in which Margie had 
lived. It was too large a city ever to feel well 
acquainted or really lonely in. Margie did not 
look forward to forming any intimate friend- 
ships. She no longer felt the need of bosom 
friends, and liked to be alone. She had lost the 
impulse to take root deeply. She felt herself 
merely a transient guest in Centropolis, and the 
lives that other girls led scarcely attracted her 
now. She wanted freedom to do something, be 
somebody. She saw no reason why being a 
woman should hamper her choice of a future, 
since she intended never to marry, and never to 
care for any Fred or any Julia to such a degree 
that she might be hit again. She saw that the 
only way to free herself from the numb misery 
she suffered was to think of something else — 
find something to do. She had luxuriated in 
grief over Julia. She could not bear to indulge 
her grief over Fred. She was afraid to face it. 

190 


GLENDA 


191 

Her ambition now became more definite. She 
was newspaper-struck, as she might have been 
stage-struck. The calling of editor loomed be^ 
fore her great and romantic and heroic. Every- 
one connected with a newspaper was exalted. 
She had dreams of a career beyond newspaper 
work — born in the craft she never said journal- 
ism — but these were of being editor of a maga- 
zine as Thackeray had been of the Cornhill. 
She had no wish to write books, being impatient 
of the labor involved. Short stories were the 
utmost she attempted. 

At her father’s suggestion, she began to write 
paragraphs for “The Man on the Corner” col- 
umn of the Sunday Sentinel, Mr. Carlin was 
supposed to write this department, but it was a 
little out of his line. It was delightful and pain- 
ful to Margie to ’write paragraphs for her 
father. Whatever was good he accepted with- 
out a word of praise. Whatever failed to please 
him he criticised mercilessly. He was a purist 
in English, and conceived paragraph writing to 
be an art by itself. In the telling of a little inci- 
dent, one must begin with a line hinting at the 
general idea of the story, work up to the point, 
and stop immediately after that. The very last 
word of all should be the most important in the 
whole things and sentences must be crisp, with 
no large words used where short ones would 
serve as well. He detested “fine” writing. 


192 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Margie and Betty went with him to the 
theatre once a week, and school and her ambi- 
tion took up the rest of her time. 

The first Monday after her arrival she started 
to school. The High School had a business-like 
air. She looked up at its windows and said : 

“Just you wait. I’m going to be somebody 
here.” 

She did not feel embarrassed at the thought 
of being a stranger among so many boys and 
girls. They were mere shadows to her. She had 
decided what words to say to the principal. She 
was always a little unready and embarrassed in 
speech, and she had learned that the only way to 
overcome this was to formulate each sentence 
before she spoke it. 

She found Mr. Harmon in his office, and the 
friendly look of his gentle, scholarly face made 
her so much at ease that she explained quite 
freely what she wanted to study. She had at- 
tended High School six weeks that autumn in 
Nebraska, and was ready to go on with the 
Junior Class. The course in Centropolis was 
largely elective. She chose Latin and English 
history, and physics and composition and draw- 
ing. Instead of geometry, she asked to be al- 
lowed to take cooking. 

‘^I don’t like mathematics,” she said frankly. 
“I’d rather take two other things than anything 
that has to do with calculations.” 


GLENDA 


193 


“Have you any reason beside dislike of 
mathematics for taking something else?” Mr. 
Harmon asked. 

“Yes, sir,” she answered. “I want to be a 
writer. Mathematics will be of no use In the 
world to me. If It’s to be just a training of my 
mind, I’d rather train It with something else.” 

She was allowed, after some discussion, to 
drop mathematics, and In all the rest of her 
High School course she never took It up again. 
Mr. Harmon was called away, presently, and 
left her In his office. A girl who had been read- 
ing In a corner, the only other occupant In the 
room, at once came over and spoke. She was a 
strlking-looking girf, dark, heavy-browed, with 
an expression almost morose. Her eyes, how- 
ever, twinkled. When she spoke her voice was 
deep and serious. 

“You are new,” she said. “I don’t see any 
sense In standing on ceremony. What Is your 
name?” 

“Margaret Carlin.” 

“I’m Glenda Woodhouse. I liked what you 
said about mathematics. I’m going to take 
cooking myself. You’ll never see a truncated 
cone when you get out of school, but you’ll be 
hungry three times a day.” 

Margie smiled at that. Here certainly was a 
girl who was queer and didn’t mind It at all. 

“Where do you live?” Glenda asked. 


194 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“In Marshall avenue.’’ 

“Why do you say ‘in’?” Glenda demanded. 
“I can’t see any sense in not saying ‘on.’ Saying 
‘in’ sounds as if you lived in a hole. I live on 
Farrington. That’s the next street to Marshall.” 

“What makes you say ‘on’ ?” retorted Margie, 
immensely amused. “It sounds as if you lived 
outdoors, smack dab, on the pavement.” 

“I can’t see that at all,” said Glenda. “But 
I’m glad you live on the hill. All the best people 
do.” 

“Why is that?” asked Margie. 

“The drainage is better, I suppose,” Glenda 
answered. “It’s the only reason I can see. Well, 
I have to go back now and find out who Queen 
Philippa was. Do you know?” 

“Not exactly.” 

“I don’t know and I don’t care, but I’ve got 
to find out. I don’t see any sense in knowing 
about a lot of people who are dead.” 

Without doubt, Glenda was queer. Margie 
soon discovered that she was popular in spite of 
her queerness. There were a great many things 
she saw no' sense in, and she never hesitated to 
say so. Sometimes Margie agreed with her. 

The next day Margie’s lessons began. The 
whole school, more than three hundred boys and 
girls, gathered in the Assembly Hall at half-past 
eight. It was large enough to hold twice their 
number. Back of the principal’s platform, at 


GLENDA 


195 

one end of the room, was a fully equipped stage, 
and on the walls of the hall hung the banners of 
ten different classes. They were huge affairs of 
velvet, or plush, in the class colors, with mottoes 
on them. At the right of the stage hung the 
Senior banner, at the left the Junior. This was 
the banner of Margie’s class. It was a dark- 
green velvet, with the motto, “Palma non sine 
pulvere,” in pale green, edged with silver. Be- 
low the motto was ’90 in silver. ’91 and ’92 
had their banners on the south wall, and on the 
north and over the entrance doors hung the ban- 
ners of classes already graduated. Class spirit 
was strong in Centropolis. Each class had its 
president, vice-president and secretary, and held 
meetings. 

The song that first morning was “Hail, Smil- 
ing Morn!” Glenda said she couldn’t see any 
sense in singing that on a rainy day, but she 
joined in with a strong and sweet alto, which 
Margie imitated as best she could, reading fairly 
correctly from the book they had. 

After the principal’s brief speech, they went 
away to the Latin room. Margie always liked 
teachers who taught Latin, and Professor Brown 
was plainly a scholar. He was called “Papa” 
Brown, possibly because no other nickname 
would have fitted his quiet, cold personality so 
ill. The class began that day Cicero’s first ora- 
tion against Catiline. Margie had read it in the 


HEART OF A GIRL 


196 

six weeks in Nebraska, but it did not come first 
in the Centropolis course. 

The girls and boys called on, rose and trans- 
lated. Professor Brown addressed the girls as 
Miss This or That, and the boys by their sur- 
names alone. After a little he called on Miss 
Carlin. 

“I have not prepared the lesson. Professor,” 
Margie said. 

“Very well, then. You may read the text, and 
then try what you can do at sight-reading.” 

Margie rose. The scene was plain to her. 
Cicero, standing toga-draped in the Senate, hurl- 
ing those splendid words at Catiline, who seemed 
to her to be huddled in his seat quite alone. She 
read with enthusiasm : 

“O di immortalesi Ubinam gentium sumus? 
In quo urbe vivimus ? Quam rem publicam ha- 
bemus ? Hie, hie sunt in nostro numero, patres 
conscripti, in hoc orbis terrae sanctissimo gravis- 
simoque consilio, qui de nostro omnium interitu 
qui de ” 

A chorus of snickers stopped her. What was 
wrong with her reading? Was this the way they 
treated a stranger in Centropolis? She felt as 
if she had been stung by a lash. Laughed at I 

“We use the Continental pronunciation,” Pro- 
fessor Brown explained. “I see you have been 
used to the English. Now, let us see what you 
can do with sight-reading.” 


GLENDA 


197 


“Just you wait, you grinning boys, just you 
wait. I may pronounce In a funny way, but 
you’ll stop grinning when I translate.” Margie 
began. She construed as nobody had ever done 
before at sight. It was not sight-reading for her, 
but no matter. She was able to hit back. 

“Immortal gods ! where In the world are we? 
In what city are we living? What kind of state 
have we? Conscript fathers, here In our midst, 
here In this most august and eminent assembly 
of the whole world there are men who are plot- 
ting the destruction of us all, the ruin of the city, 
the ruin even of the world. I, the consul, see 
these men, and I demand their Intention regard- 
ing public affairs. I do not yet wound even by 
words the men who merit butchery by the 
sword.” 

“Excellent! Excellent!” said Professor 
Brown. “Not only the sense of the Latin, but 
an excellent English rendering. A free render- 
ing as sight-reading should be.” 

Margie sat down quivering with triumph. 
Already she had struck one blow back. 

After the lesson, Glenda made her character- 
istic comment: 

“I don’t see any sense in the Continental pro- 
nunciation,” she said, “The English sounds a 
lot better. Why do we say ‘Sissero’ out of class 
and KIkero In class? I think It’s foolish.” 

Margie’s next lesson was In physics. The 


HEART OF A GIRL 


198 

class recited in the laboratory in the basement. 
It was the same book she had studied half 
through in Adams City, but whereas in Adams 
City one skipped the listed experiments at the 
foot of the page, in Centropolis one had to do 
them all and record them on blanks. One was 
to tell what one did, and what one concluded 
from what one observed. 

Margie had dozens of experiments to make 
up, and she detested working with apparatus. 
She could see no reason why one should make 
experiments to prove what somebody had al- 
ready proved and set down in the book. Mak- 
ing up those experiments out of school, she wrote 
most of them from consultation with the text- 
book. Those that required actual use of ap- 
paratus she seldom worked out successfully. 
She spent all one afternoon melting ice in the 
attempt to learn how many calories its reduction 
to water required, and never made her result 
tally with the book. In the end she set down 
what the book said. Glenda, in a similar case, 
would have contended that the book was wrong. 

Glenda had no respect for theories. What 
was the sense of the Law of Inertia, any- 
way? Why should one say that an object set in 
motion would go on moving forever unless some- 
thing stopped it? Didn’t gravity and friction 
and a lot of other things always stop it? Glenda 
frequently interrupted the progress of a recita- 


GLENDA' 


199 

tion to argue in this way, and she was not to be 
convinced. She was a natural doubter. It was 
a trait that sometimes led to disaster. She and 
Margie together one day undertook to distill 
inky water. They made their still carefully 
after the directions. The inky water boiled mer- 
rily over the spirit lamp, and the steam began to 
pass through the connecting tube to liquefy in 
the other flask. The process was too slow to 
satisfy Glenda. 

“I think it would do better if we let a lot of 
steam collect in the ink bottle and then let it out 
all at once. It stands to reason that the more 
steam we have the quicker it will turn to water.” 

Margie had no ideas on the subject. She pre- 
ferred to do just what the book said. 

“I’m going to hold the steam in a while,” 
Glenda said. She pinched the rubber tube just 
above the flask of inky water. Instantly some- 
thing blew up. The ink spattered over Glenda, 
but she was unmoved. 

“I see that I was wrong,” she said. “You 
must let the steam escape slowly.” 

Margie sat down and laughed till she ached. 
The calm, serious expression of Glenda under 
her ink was too much for her. 

There was another day when Glenda’s spirit 
of doubt led her to grief. She and Margie were 
experimenting with electricity. They set the 
small dynamo going and watched the spark leap 


200 


HEART OF A GIRL 


across when they held the poles a little distance 
apart. The book spoke of certain things as being 
non-conductors of electricity. It spoke, too, of 
the effect of electricity on muscles. Glenda was 
unconvinced. 

“Suppose I put one of these wires on each! 
side of my tongue. Do you suppose I’d feel 
any current?” 

“I think you would,” said Margie. 

“I don’t believe it,” said Glenda. “I think 
the current would just go on through my tongue 
and I wouldn’t feel it.” 

She applied her tongue to the gap between 
the poles. For an instant her eyes seemed to be 
about to pop out of her head. Then she stood 
up and began to rub her tongue. 

“It was almost jerked out by the roots,” she 
explained when she could talk again. “But I 
didn’t taste anything, as Professor Williams said. 
He is wrong about that. I’m going to tell him 
sot” 

Examinations were a positive grief to Glenda. 
It was not possible then to argue. You had 
merely to write answers to the questions that 
were set down on the blackboard, whether you 
thought they were sensible questions or not. 
Glenda always looked more sombre than ever, 
on examination day. She did not see why an- 
swering ten questions twice a term should be 
important. You might answer them all cor- 


GLENDA 


201 


rectly or miss them all, and in neither case would 
the result indicate what you knew. It took her 
a long time to complete an examination paper. 
Margie, on the other hand, was always the first 
of the class to finish. She had discovered a cer- 
tain odd quality of the mind. In playing any- 
thing on the piano she had discovered that if she 
watched her fingers and thought about what was 
coming next, she could never play the piece 
through. Left to themselves, and unhampered 
by her attention, her fingers remembered and 
played. This was true of her mind also. She 
merely read off the examination questions and 
let her mind answer them. If she stopped to 
think, she was never certain that any answer was 
right. Gradually she came to have a dim con- 
ception of something she called her sub-self, and 
relied on it, as on another individuality. If 
father wanted paragraphs, it was useless and 
hampering to think what to write. The thing 
to do was to sit down and wait till the sub-self 
began to write. If you were called on in school 
to recite a poem, you might be unable to recall 
a line of it as you walked to the platform. But 
you needn’t worry. All you had to do was to 
think of nothing, and your sub-self would recite. 
She learned to rely implicitly on that sub-self. 
It could do things she was utterly unable to do. 
She had a vague superstition that if she doubted 
it she would fail. She talked to it as '‘you.” It 


202 


HEART OF A GIRL 


helped her most in writing and in reciting things. 
Some of the things she wrote; all of them that 
were good came to her. And she never failed 
to repeat correctly any poem, or speech of her 
own, she had committed to memory. She trusted 
to her sub-self to bring her success, and ad- 
mired it. 

Glenda was her nearest friend, but there was 
no intimacy between them. They called each 
other by their first names, and visited each other 
occasionally. A few other girls called Margie 
by her first name, but she seldom saw them out 
of school. The ladylike young girl who lived 
next door, and did not go to school, called on 
her and asked her to join a guild in the church. 
Margie attended one or two meetings and then 
dropped out. The ladylike girl was tiresome. 
Margie meanjt to have a future unlike an average 
girl’s future, and she no longer cared whether 
she was like other girls or not. They did not 
interest her. She was less introspective than 
ever before, and she felt old. 

“I shall never let myself care again,” she said 
to herself. “People can care for me if they want 
to, but I won’t run the risk of being made un- 
happy.” 


CHARTER XVL 


A POINT OF ORDER. 

Debating societies were an important feature 
of the Centropolis High School. There was a 
general society whose meetings everybody was 
expected to attend, and almost every one be- 
longed to one of the four smaller societies, the 
Brilliant, the Utile Duke, the Philomathean, and 
the Athenian. 

The Brilliants had a rising sun, in ham- 
mered brass, on the door of the class-room in 
which they met, and were grudgingly admitted 
to be the best debaters in school. Glenda 
was an Utile Duke, and Margie joined that 
society. She had debated once in Adams City, 
but there was no debating society there, and 
no attention paid to parliamentary usage. In 
Centropolis Roberts’ “Rules of Order” were 
consulted as often as any text-book. Margie 
found herself out of things at the very first meet- 
ing of the Utile Dukes. Somebody called for 
the previous question while Glenda was arguing 
against accepting a challenge to join debate from 
203 


204 


HEART OF A GIRL 


the Athenians, and Glenda refused to be downed 
by the chair’s decision, that the call admitted of 
no debate. Margie could not see why you could 
stop anybody in that way. It seemed an unjust 
advantage for the many to take of the indi- 
vidual. It was a sort of denial of the right of 
free speech, but when, in spite of Glenda’s pro- 
test, the question was put to vote, she began to 
understand that to hold one’s own in the society, 
one must know the rules. She borrowed a copy 
of Roberts’ and set herself to learn. Knowing 
exactly what to do gave her confidence. 

There was a debate in each society once a fort- 
night, and in the General Society, which met in 
the Assembly Flail, once a month, unless a joint 
debate between the two societies took the place 
of this. Margie longed to debate, but scarcely 
dared at first. She might make a failure of it. 

The debate between the Athenians and the 
Utile Dukes was on the question, “Resolved, 
That the Romans were a greater nation than the 
Greeks.” The Utile Dukes had the negative. 
There were two speakers from each society for 
leaders, and any four who chose might speak in 
the after-debate. Margie prepared a speech, but 
said nothing about it, for she was not at all sure 
she would be able to get up and speak when the 
time came. The leader on each side was a Senior 
boy, and she felt that Seniors were immensely 
older and more learned than Juniors. And if 


A POINT OF ORDER 


205 


her prepared speech did not fit in, she was very 
doubtful of her ability to speak extempora- 
neously. It would be hideous to stand up before 
the whole school stammering and hesitating for 
a word, obliged, possibly, in the end to sit down 
in shameful defeat. Few of the girls, none, m 
fact, but Senior girls, cared or dared to take part 
in joint debates. They spoke in the little debates 
in the societies to which they belonged. Some 
of them thought it almost trying to be like boys 
if one talked in debates in the Assembly Halls. 

It was a serious affair, that debate about the 
Greeks and the Romans. The first speaker for 
the affirmative began crushingly. It astonished 
him that anyone could for a moment consider 
that the Greeks were great. Anyone who did 
think so was surely very badly informed. One 
had to read only a little history to find out how 
little the Greeks amounted to. The Romans had 
conquered them — conquered all the world. “To 
be a Roman was greater than a King,” he quoted. 
“Rome sat on her seven hills and from her 
throne of beauty ruled the world. Caesar had 
been the greatest military genius the world had 
ever seen.” He had conquered the Gauls and 
the Teutons and the Britons. Latin languages 
were spoken to-day by more people than Greek 
was. For ten minutes he stormed on, and sat 
down amid great applause. 

The first speaker for the negative was aston- 


2o6 


HEART OF A GIRL 


ished that any one could consider the Romans 
great. They borrowed their gods from the 
Greeks. The Greeks, too, were great warriors. 
Alexander conquered the world. Homer, the 
greatest poet, was a Greek. The Greeks were 
law-givers and philosophers beside. One had 
only to read history to find out how much greater 
the Greeks were than the Romans. Nobody who 
read history at all could fail to be convinced. 

Margie sat through the speeches of the four 
leaders, her hands cold with excitement. If only 
she could stand up as those Seniors did and speak 
so firmly and freely. And yet how few tell- 
ing points they seemed to make. The result 
would be decided by vote of the school. The 
lower two classes were large. Their votes really 
decided a matter. What did they know of the 
learned things the Seniors talked about? 

The negative side fared badly. The girl 
leader was frightened, and read her speech in a 
low voice. All the other leaders read, too. This 
struck Margie as a mistake. The after-debate 
would go better, because then there would be no 
papers to hamper them. The first speaker in the 
after-debate made the one point that Latin was 
the language of scholars in the Dark Ages. The 
next speaker for the negative was a Senior girl 
who forgot what she intended to say. The sec- 
ond speaker for the affirmative dwelt on the ex- 
cellence of Roman roads. Now was the time 


!A POINT OF ORDER 


207, 

for the negative to produce an after-debate 
speaker. It was their last chance. The Utile 
Dulces, sitting together on one side of the hall, 
looked dispirited. Margie seemed glued to her 
chair. She found herself saying, “One for the 
money, two for the show, three to make ready, 
and four” — she took the plunge. She had a 
moment of panic when she found herself stand- 
ing. Her knees shook, and she clutched the back 
of the bench. 

“Mr. President,” she began, wishing she had 
not risen. 

“Louder!” called a Brilliant. 

“I want to say that I — that I do not agree 

with the — with the ” Her voice sounded 

husky to her. Her mouth was dry. 

“Louder!” cried a Brilliant again. 

Margie found her voice. 

“There spoke the Roman!” she cried. 
“Louder was always the cry of the people who 
produced a Pontius Pilate and a Nero. Louder, 
to drown the cries of the people they oppressed ! 
Louder, louder, loud as a drum, noisy outside 
and empty inside.” 

The Utile Dulces clapped at this. Margie 
was perfectly at ease now, though her knees still 
went on shaking. 

“What does being great mean?” she said. 
“Rome was great, like a balloon. Greece was 
great, like a rock. Latin was the language of the 


208 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Dark Ages. It was not until the world stopped 
speaking it that the Dark Ages were over. In 
what language was the New Testament written, 
Latin or Greek? Greek, of course. Greece, 
therefore, gave Christianity to the world. Pon- 
tius Pilate and Nero — can a Christian world call 
their nation great ? What do we say of a person 
who is brave? Do we say Roman ? No, we say 
Spartan. That’s Greek. If killing and enslav- 
ing people is great, then Rome was great. If 
leaving beautiful and enlightening things after 
them is great, then the Greeks were certainly 
better than the Romans. The Greeks taught 
the world philosophy and art. The Romans 
merely went out and killed. (Applause.) The 
real test of the greatness of these two nations is 
the impression they have left on the world. All 
the world reveres the Greeks. You must admit 
that they were greater than the Romans when 
you think of one thing — ^Which nation produced 
the nose we admire most? This is the whole 
question. If you admit that the straight Greek 
nose is the most beautiful, you must admit the 
Greeks were greater than the Romans. If you 
admire the beak-like proboscis, the hideous 
Roman nose, call the Romans great. Pontius 
Pilate had a Roman nose.” 

The smaller boys and girls in the lower classes 
broke out into laughter and applause. Margie 
sat down trembling. She was not quite sure what 


A POINT OF ORDER 


209 

she had said, but she had not been afraid. She 
knew it was not argument, but people applauded. 
Pontius Pilate’s nose won the day. 

Margie could scarcely control her trembling 
while the vote was taken. After she knew the 
negative had won, and Glenda said her speech 
did it, she seemed to float on air. She felt a 
sense of power. It was not hard to speak if you 
thought quickly and spoke slowly. Looking the 
people you wanted to sway square in the eye 
seemed to compel them to agree with you. All 
you needed in order to debate was confidence in 
yourself. Nobody ever won who looked scared. 

She asked Glenda if she had looked afraid. 

“My, no,” said Glenda. “You looked as if 
you owned the place. But I didn’t see much 
sense to what you said. How do you know Pon- 
tius Pilate had a Roman nose?” 

Margie didn’t know. She knew merely 
that a short, easy sentence went home better 
than a long one. Her father had taught her 
that. 

The Utile Dukes having won a debate be- 
came popular. First-year and second-year boys 
and girls wanted to join. It was Margie’s ambi- 
tion now to make the Utile Dukes win every 
time. Nobody who wouldn’t be a help ought to 
be admitted. Few girls cared to debate, but all 
the boys did. Keep the girls out, then. 

It was the custom to regard admission to any 


210 


HEART OF A GIRL 


of the societies as a privilege, not a right. It was 
not the correct thing for a first or second-year 
pupil to ask to be admitted. The first-year pupils 
were called Fourths ; the second, Thirds. Only 
after two years of High School did one take the 
college-sounding title of Junior. Usually, if a 
Fourth showed any ability, he would be asked 
to join a society toward the end of a year. The 
Utile Dulces were exclusive. They chose mem- 
bers who were considered clever. They voted 
on their names, and then extended invitations. 
The ballot was secret, and one black ball barred 
a candidate out. 

Margie now became active in society meetings. 
She spoke at every opportunity, and held to the 
strictest parliamentary usage. Near Christmas, 
proposed members were voted on. In the list 
was the name of a Fourth — Clara Holcomb. 
Margie knew nothing of her except that she had 
broken down in the midst of reciting a poem in 
Assembly Hall. She was timid and had a weak 
voice. She was not a desirable addition to the 
Utile Dulces. Margie and Glenda black-balled 
her. 

A few days later a notice was written on the 
black-board of Miss Marshall’s room. The 
Seniors sat in Miss Marshall’s room, and the 
Juniors went there to recite history. The Utile 
Dulces were requested to meet there after school 
that day. It was whispered that Miss Marshall 


A POINT OF ORDER 


2II 


had something to say. Margie came in a little 
late. The meeting had been called to order, and 
Miss Marshall was about to address the society. 
Margie sat down near the back of the room. 
She was not especially fond of Miss Marshall, 
who had an idea of forming the characters of 
her pupils. She expected them to take her point 
of view of history. Margie had already crossed 
swords with her over Bloody Queen Mary. 
Elizabeth, Margie thought, equally deserved 
the stigma of such a term. 

“I have called you together,” said Miss 
Marshall, “to present a matter to you.” 

This roused Margie’s antagonism instantly. 
Nobody but the president of the society had the 
slightest right to call the Utile Dukes together. 

“At your last election of members,” Miss 
Marshall went on, “the name of Clara Holcomb 
was presented, and two of your members black- 
balled her. It is very hard that poor Clara 
should be wounded. It was cruel to hurt the 
feelings of a girl who cannot help the fact that 
her father is in prison in another State. You 
ought all try to be charitable and kind — do your 
best to make up to the poor girl for her shame 
and humiliation. I am sorry to have to speak 
in this way, for there were only two of you who 
showed prejudice against her. I hope you will 
see the necessity of reconsidering the matter. 
That is all.” 


2121 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Margie sat in her seat boiling with rage. She 
had never heard anything about Clara Hol- 
comb’s father, and it would not have made the 
slightest difference with her if she had known, 
in or out of school. If people were well bred 
in themselves and interesting, she cared nothing 
whatever for their families, though well-bred 
people naturally had well-bred parents. She did 
not believe that many of the girls knew about 
Clara’s father. It seemed indecent of Miss 
Marshall to make the thing public. Further, 
Miss Marshall had no business to tell the Utile 
Dukes what they ought to do. If some Utile 
Duke had not violated the oath to keep the pro- 
ceedings of executive sessions secret. Miss 
Marshall would never have known. Somebody 
was a traitor. She got to her feet. 

“Since the secrets of this society are public 
property,” she said, “I suppose it is known who 
black-balled Miss Holcomb. I was one of the 
two, and G1 somebody else was the other.” 

“Me,” said Glenda. 

“She was not black-balled on account of her 
father, for I never heard a word about him till 
now. This is not a charitable society. It is a 
debating society. I black-balled her because I 
didn’t think she could debate.” 

“She feels very bitterly about it,” said Miss 
Marshall. 

“That isn’t my fault,” said Margie. “It is 


A POINT OF ORDER 


213 

the fault of the person who tattled. It Is a rule 
of our society that people mustn’t be asked to 
join till we’ve voted on them, just so they won’t 
get their feelings hurt. We can’t help it if there 
are tattle-tales in the society.” 

Margie was now at white heat. She did not 
care if Miss Marshall was the teacher. She 
would fight the thing out to the end. 

“But you will reconsider now that you do 
know,” said Miss Marshall. “I am sure you will 
withdraw your black-ball. It would be unjust 
and unkind to keep her out now.” 

“I shall black-ball anybody who doesn’t care 
to debate,” Margie flashed back, taking her seat. 

A sense of injustice filled her. She had not 
been unkind to Clara Holcomb. She had taken 
it for granted that Clara would not know her 
name had been discussed. She resented bitterly 
Miss Marshall’s intimation that she meant to 
be unkind, and, as always when smarting under 
injustice, she became obstinate. 

“I shall appeal to the society, then,” said Miss 
Marshall, hotly. “I am sure the others are not 
so uncharitable. I want all those who want the 
black-balling repealed to hold up ” 

Margie sprang to her feet. 

“Mr. President,” she cried, “I rise to a point 
of order. Non-members of this society, while 
they may speak before us, are not privileged .to 
put any question to the house, nor to take part 


214 


HEART OF A GIRL 


in any way in our deliberations. The person 
now speaking is out of order.” 

“I want to find out what the society thinks/’ 
said Miss Marshall, hotly. “If Miss Car- 
lin ” 

“Mr. President,” said Margie, drowning out 
Miss Marshall’s words with her rather heavy 
voice, “I am speaking to a point of order and 
have the floor. There is no motion before the 
house. If the sense of the house on any ques- 
tion is to be taken, a motion must be put. Other- 
wise, we are all out of order.” 

Marcia Duncan, whom Margie felt sure had 
been the tattle-tale, rose. 

“Mr. President,” she said, “I move that the 
question of black-balling Miss Holcomb be re- 
considered.” 

“I second the motion,” cried somebody else. 

The motion was put and carried. 

“Now, where are we, Mr. President?” asked 
Glenda. “It seems to me that the matter stands 
just where it did when Miss Holcomb’s name 
was first submitted.” 

“The chair thinks it does,” said the President, 
who was a Senior girl. 

“Then, if we are to vote on the name, I move 
we do now go into executive session, as our by- 
laws provide that no outsider shall be present at 
the election of members,” said Margie. 

“I second the motion,” said Glenda. 


A POINT OF ORDER 


215 

No debate being possible on this question, the 
motion was put and carried. Miss Marshall 
withdrew, very much ruffled. She said some- 
thing vaguely about going to the principal. Miss 
Holcomb’s name was offered again. Glenda 
weakened, but Margie held out. Miss Holcomb 
was black-balled again. Margie took care to say 
to Glenda, in Marcia Duncan’s hearing, as they 
went out: 

“It’s a pity we can’t expel tattle-tales.” 

That night she was troubled about poor Clara, 
remembering lone, and lone’s father. Yet it 
seemed to her indelicate and unkind to treat 
Clara in any way that savored of pity. To be 
pitied in one’s humiliation was the one intoler- 
able thing in* life. She was sorry about the whole 
thing, but convinced that she had been right. 
Miss Marshall had no business to interfere, and 
Marcia Duncan ought not to have tattled. 
Neither of them, she was glad to know, had 
power to down her in the matter. She was so 
uncomfortable about the whole thing that she 
felt she must find some way out of it, but at 
first no way presented itself. She could not 
help seeing how Clara Holcomb must feel 
about it. 

During the Christmas holidays she met Clara 
in the street. They had never been acquaint- 
ances, but Margie stopped and spoke. 

“I want to have a talk with you,” she said. 


2i6 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“You’re a mean thing,” Clara cried. “I don’t 
want to speak to you.” 

Clara was a Fourth, and naturally one was not 
embarrassed before a Fourth. 

“I know you think I’m mean,” she said. 
“Marcia Duncan told you I black-balled you, 
didn’t she?” 

“Yes,” said Clara, “and you did it. She 
came and asked me if I wanted to belong. I 
never thought of it before. It was hateful of 
you.” 

“I black-balled you, but you don’t know why. 
It ” Margie began. 

“Marcia Duncan told me,” said Clara, her 
eyes filling with tears. “Marcia said you knew. 
I didn’t think any of the girls knew except her. 
She came from the same town we did.” 

“I didn’t know,” said Margie. “It wouldn’t 
have made any difference if I had known. No- 
body cares about anybody’s father in school. All 
in the world I objected to was that I thought you 
couldn’t speak well in debates.” 

“Well, I can’t. I get scared,” said Clara. 
“But I thought ” 

“How could you think? I’m a stranger here. 
I don’t know anything about any of the girls’ 
fathers, and Ldon’t care. I can see you — ^well, 
you are a lady. Lots of the girls aren’t. Marcia 
Duncan is a sneak. I’ll get even with her.” 

A new thought struck Margie just then. 


A POINT OF ORDER 


217 

‘^Couldn’t you leam not to be scared?” she 
asked. 

“I don’t know,” said Clara. “I might if I had 
something I liked to speak. That poetry I failed 
on was so silly.” 

“Do you have to do any essays?” Margie 
asked. 

“Yes,” said Clara; “I’ve got to read one on 
Lincoln’s birthday. The class elected me, you 
know. I’m class secretary.” She spoke with 
pitiful pride. “Somebody from each class has 
to do something. But I know I’ll get scared, 
because I can’t write.” 

“Would you get scared if I wrote you an 
essay?” Margie asked. 

“No,” said Clara. “Would you do it?” 

“Yes,” said Margie. “I like to write. If you 
commit it to memory and say it off without get- 
ting scared I’ll vote for you in the Utile Dulce, 
but you’ll have to debate when you get in.” 

“I will if you’ll tell me what to say.” 

The essay was written. Clara came to Mar- 
gie’s house and repeated it again and again. She 
could speak loud, too, when Margie insisted. 
Margie was afraid Glenda would find out, but 
Clara kept the secret. She did well on Lincoln’s 
birthday. In the list of names handed in anon- 
ymously at the first March meeting of the Utile 
Dulces, Clara Holcomb’s name appeared. No- 
body black-balled her. Margie’s satisfaction at 


2I8 


HEART OF A GIRL 


having done a fine thing was tempered with the 
feeling that the gratitude of the secretary of the 
Fourths might come in handy some day. She 
never believed that any of her actions were really 
generous. All Glenda said was : 

“Well, I’m glad you changed your mind. You 
see, she really can speak well, and write well, too. 
I don’t see any sense in judging people the way 
you do.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I. 

There was one honor to be had in the Cen- 
tropolis High School that Margie despaired of 
obtaining. This was the editorship of the school 
monthly. She had not been a month in school 
before she began to contribute to the High 
School World. Her first contribution was a 
poem called “Contentment”: 

“Contentment is a little pool 
That all unruffled lies, 

Reflecting back the flight of birds, 

And sunny summer skies. 

“Unrest, a mountain streamlet is. 

With changing pace and strong. 

That bears no image but its own 
And sings its own free song. 

“But quiet waters stagnate soon. 

And feel the force the most 
Of icy bars the Winter sets. 

And fetters of the frost. 

219 


220 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“The mountain stream is pure and clear, 

And swift its waters flow, 

Though iron bars above them lock. 
Unfettered on below.” 

Published, this seemed to convict her of being 
sentimental, so she set to work to offset it with 
a paper on Washington, in imitation of Bill Nye. 
It was, doubtless, flippant, but being one which 
she had submitted to the teacher of composition 
the year before in Nebraska, she had no idea 
that it would displease anyone. The very next 
month’s World contained a protest* from a Senior 
against the irreverence of it. It was irreverent, 
and it was coarse. Margie saw Miss Marshall 
behind the Senior girl, and the accusation of 
coarseness rankled. She was not discouraged, 
however. She had a hopeless hope that the 
editorship might come to her, and she sent in a 
serial story to run through three numbers. It 
was republished later in the patent insides of 
many country newspapers, with no credit given 
to the author. 

The editorial board was elected in March, and 
the lower three classes were eligible, in conse- 
: quence. Margie had been too short a time in 
school to be elected editor. A position on the 
staff was all that fell to her. She would gladly 
have written the whole magazine, yet the mere 
title of Editor-in-Chief seemed to her to exalt 


MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES 1 . 221 


Florence Hawley, her classmate, who held it. 
Just being an editor made anybody great, even 
if one was editor of a mere high school monthly, 
only. The glamour never left journalism for her. 
She counted it a day of days when her father 
introduced her to Miss Flora MacDonald, who 
wrote such brilliant things on the Sentinel. Flora 
MacDonald seemed to her greater than George 
Eliot or Harriet Beecher Stowe. Afterward 
she sent a poem to Miss MacDonald under an 
assumed name, and it was published in the Senti- 
nel. Not even father knew who wrote it. Mar- 
gie never spoke of poetry to him. He had never 
written verses in his life. 

Once the city editor asked her father to 
have her report an entertainment at the school. 
It was the formal opening of the new manual 
training department, and Glenda had been se- 
lected to write and deliver an address. Glenda 
was deeply interested in manual training, and 
was the only girl in school who insisted on the 
right to learn what the boys learned. She joined 
the carpentering class, turned napkin-rings for 
all her friends, and built a dog-house. It gave 
her great satisfaction to be able to drive a nail 
properly. Her address was written and deliv- 
ered in the serious spirit in which she did every- 
thing. The opening demand of it became a 
school tradition. 

“What shall we do with our boys?” she 


222 


HEART OF A GIRL 


asked. “That is the question we must answer 
frankly. What shall we do with our sons ?” 

Margie went to the Sentinel office after the 
entertainment and wrote the report at her 
father’s desk. The stir of the place, the noise of 
the presses on the floor above, the ringing of 
telephone bells, all added to her sense of being 
in the very centre of things. When she went 
with father to the city room to hand in her copy, 
it was thrilling and painful, too, to see the city 
editor glance through it. When he had finished 
he drew a line down one side of each page in 
blue pencil. Margie’s heart stopped beating. 
It wasn’t good enough, but then the editor 
wadded it into a brass cylinder and sent it up a 
tube. 

“Why did he blue-pencil it if he’s going to use 
it?” she asked her father. 

“That’s the mark for solid nonpareil,” her 
father explained. 

A fire alarm bell rang as they came out. One 
of the reporters looked up, said, “684 — that’s 
the wholesale district,” and, seizing his hat, he 
ran out. What a wonderful, wonderful place a 
newspaper office was ! And she might be there 
herself some day, if she made herself somebody. 
Then she could hit back at the world. She never 
told at school that she had reported the enter- 
tainment. It did not seem a thing to tell. She 
preferred to preserve her incognito, and let 


MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I. 223 

her schoolmates consider her merely one of 
them. 

She joined the girls’ double quartette. She 
had never been quite sure whether she sang or 
not, but she rather thought she didn’t. She could 
play any tune she knew by ear, and sang duets 
with Betty, but had a feeling that she did not 
keep in tune when she sang alone. Glenda had 
an unusual voice, and Margie, merely echoing it, 
was accepted as one of the two second altos. 

The first time that the double quartette sang 
in public was at the church funeral of the Super- 
intendent of Schools. Margie had a hysterical 
desire to giggle during the service. Seen from 
the choir, the people all looked so funnily solemn. 
One man among the pall-bearers had on new 
shoes, and one could see him moving his feet 
about miserably and ludicrously. The under- 
taker’s gloves were too small, and he tiptoed 
about in an absurdly important way. 

At the end of the service the congregation was 
bidden to file by the coffin and take a last look 
at the deceased. Margie was glad the choir was 
not expected to go. She had a horror of the 
dead, and a pity for them, too. It was so brutal 
of the living to look at them and speak of them 
when they were helpless to defend themselves. 
When the last of the line had passed, the under- 
taker and his assistant lifted the coffin lid to lay 
it in place — a loud cry rang through the church. 


224 


HEART OF A GIRL 


The dead man’s wife ran forward and flung her- 
self on the body, spreading out her arms to keep 
the lid away. 

Margie leaned forward and hid her face. She 
had seen the nakedness of a grief stripped in 
public. The brutality of the thing sickened her. 
Forever after she hoped that when she came to 
die she might cover her face at the last moment, 
and be buried with her face still covered. She 
had read somewhere of a man who uncovered 
the deformed foot of the dead Byron. Looking 
at a dead face seemed exactly like that, for the 
dead were deformed out of all semblance to the 
living. They were dead. She kept her face 
hidden till the church was empty. 

She never attended a funeral again with the 
quartette. Once they were asked to sing at the 
funeral of a teacher. Margie saw no way to 
avoid going, but she felt sick at the prospect. 
On the day of the funeral, however, she woke in 
the morning with her right eye swollen shut. 
There seemed no accounting for its condition, 
but appearing in public with it was clearly out 
of the question. She did not stay at home, be- 
cause it was examination day, but she tied a 
bandage over the eye. After school she went to 
tell Miss Marshall, who had charge of the music 
arrangements, that she could not sing with the 
quartette. 

“Let’s see the eye,” Miss Marshall said. 


MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES 1 . 225 

Margie jerked off the bandage. 

“I thought so,” said Miss Marshall. 
‘‘There’s nothing in the world wrong with your 
eye. Why didn’t you say plainly you wanted 
to get out of going?” 

“It was swollen shut this morning,” Margie 
declared. 

Miss Marshall merely smiled incredulously. 
Margie walked angrily to the cloak-room and 
looked in the glass. The swelling had entirely 
disappeared. She never knew what had been 
the matter with the eye, but she never forgave 
Miss Marshall. 

“If I had wanted to lie,” she said to herself, 
“I’d have thought up a better excuse than that.” 

After that she set herself to annoy Miss 
Marshall in an ingenious way. Glenda was the 
instrument of revenge. Glenda did not take 
kindly to the university method of studying his- 
tory. She preferred to learn from one book, 
and saw no sense of muddling herself by looking 
up different authorities. She and Margie pre- 
pared their history lesson in the school library. 
Charles I. and Cromwell were their subjects on 
the day when Margie started in to torment Miss 
Marshall. Margie selected the books of refer- 
ence that suited her purpose best, and read to 
Glenda. Dickens’ account of Charles’ death 
came first. 

“Wasn’t that a noble death!” she said, hav- 


226 


HEART OF A GIRL 


ing carefully warped the text to increase 
Charles’ heroism. “What a brave* man he was. 
The last of the great Kings ! ‘I have a good 
cause and a gracious God on my side.’ I tell 
you, Glenda, he was a martyr.” 

“It does look that way,” Glenda said. Glenda 
was of English descent, and high church. 

“Miss Marshall doesn’t think so,” said Mar- 
gie. “She doesn’t believe in kings and queens, 
anyway. She thinks England ought to be a 
republic.” 

This was a pure invention, and Margie knew 
it, but that made no difference to her. “Over 
the left,” she said to herself. 

“Why, she even admires Cromwell, and 
Hume says he was a fanatical hypocrite. Why, 
when Parliament wouldn’t do what he wanted, 
he locked the doors and wouldn’t let them do 
anything. I think he was about the worst tyrant 
in history. Just read this. Of course. Miss 
Marshall wouldn’t believe it, but then she’s a 
Roundhead, anyway.” 

Glenda read. Glenda was a person of strong 
convictions. The beheading of Charles I. be- 
came at once a personal grievance to her. She 
went to class next day determined to exercise her 
right of free speech. Miss Marshall unwittingly 
opened the battle with her first question. 

“State why the English people rebelled 
against Charles,” she asked Glenda. 


MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I. 227 

“They were led to it by a lot of hypocritical 
malcontents like Cromwell,” said Glenda. 

“I don’t think one can say that,” said Miss 
Marshall. “Charles was not honest, and he op- 
pressed the people.” 

“So did Cromwell,” said Glenda, “only he 
was worse. He hadn’t the belief of the divine 
right of kings to make him think the people 
needed a strong ruler.” 

“But that belief is an exploded one.” 

“I don’t see how,” Glenda answered. “Queen 
Victoria is temporal head of the church.” 

“That’s scarcely an argument,” Miss 
Marshall said, not wishing to venture on the 
dangerous ground of religion. 

“But it’s so,” said Glenda. 

“That may be, but it doesn’t give her divine 
right.” 

“I don’t see why not. It says on English 
money, ‘Queen by the Grace of God.’ ” 

“Still, you haven’t answered my question,” 

“Yes, I have. I don’t think Charles was 
wrong. Cromwell himself said that no man 
could enjoy his possessions in peace unless the 
King had his rights. And after that he turned 
around and wanted him killed.” 

“But the King exceeded his rights.” 

“So did Cromwell. As soon as he got power 
he wouldn’t let Parliament do anything he didn’t 
want done. He wanted to be king himself.” 


228 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Margie sat back happy. Miss Marshall was 
growing red in the face. 

“I’m afraid you haven’t read history cor- 
rectly,” she snapped. 

“I read Hume. He calls Cromwell a fanat- 
ical hypocrite.” 

“He was prejudiced.” 

“I don’t see how we can know who was preju- 
diced. Lots of people call Charles a martyr. 
He was certainly more consistent than Crom- 
well.” 

“Oh, no, not at all.” 

“I don’t see why not. He pretended to be so 
religious and puritanical, and Dickens says he 
had gout. And the Encyclopaedia says he had a 
red, swollen face, and didn’t wear clean linen.” 

“Clean linen is not the question,” said Miss 
Marshall. “Cromwell certainly ruled England 
in the way he thought best.” 

“So did Charles, and it shows what the people 
thought of the two when they wanted another 
king right away after Cromwell died. Anything 
Cromwell wanted to do he made believe he 
thought was right.” 

“So did Charles.” 

“Yes, but Charles had a right to think a king 
could rule the people. Cromwell was nothing 
but a usurper.” 

“He was no worse than Charles.” Miss 
Marshall was clearly out of patience. 


MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES 1. 229 

“That’s the same as saying they were both 
bad,” said Glenda. “That’s what I think. 
That’s what I said at first. They were both 
tyrants.” 

“Oh, no, pardon me-, but you didn’t say 
that. You said Cromwell was a fanatical hypo- 
crite.” 

“Well, he was. Hume says so.” 

Thereupon, the circle being complete, Glenda 
and Miss Marshall began to go round it again, 
to the unspeakable satisfaction of Margie. At 
the end of the recitation period, they were still at 
it, and as it was impossible to ruffle Glenda, or 
to lead her into any speech which would deserve 
a reprimand, and so silence her, the discussion 
was not a happy one for Miss Marshall. Glen- 
da’s last speech was: 

“Well, I can’t see why we should condemn 
Charles for doing just what Cromwell did when 
he got the chance.” 

Miss Marshall’s last answer was : 

“But we should take the verdict of competent 
historians.” 

And the call-bell interrupted Glenda in the 
midst of: 

“But I can’t see how we can find out which 

historian is competent. They’re all ” She 

meant to add “prejudiced,” but the dismissal of 
the class prevented it. 

After that Glenda was called on merely to 


230 


HEART OF A GIRL 


mention dates, or other undiscussable things, and 
Margie rejoiced greatly. 

She carried the baiting of Miss Marshall into 
the cooking class, for no other reason than that 
Miss Marshall had been responsible for the in- 
troduction of cooking in the school. Miss 
Marshall frequently attended the class. 

Three afternoons a week, the girls gathered 
in a basement room, took notes of the teacher’s 
lecture, and then went to work in pairs at the 
long tables. Glenda could see no sense in lea.rn- 
ing to cook by rule. Anybody could cook from 
directions in a cook-book without learning. 
What a cooking class ought to teach you was to 
cook when you had nothing to go by, and noth- 
ing to measure things in. You wouldn’t have a 
thermometer to test an oven with at home, and 
you wouldn’t have all the utensils that the school 
provided. You ought to learn to cook with what- 
ever you happened to have. The eight rules for 
cake-making fairly incensed Glenda. The first 
one was : 

“Measure all ingredients carefully before be- 
ginning.” 

The second: “Sift dry ingredients, and com- 
bine thoroughly.” 

The third : “Cream the butter before adding 
sugar.” 

This third rule set Glenda to arguing. Her 
mother creamed butter and sugar together. 


MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES L 231 

Teaching Glenda anything was no easy task. 
She was never in the slightest degree impertinent. 
She was merely serious, and ready to change her 
mind if the sense of a thing could be pointed out 
to her. The pointing was the difficulty. She. 
insisted on cooking in her own way, adding a 
pinch of salt and a dash of flavoring, instead of 
a salt-spoonful of the one, and half a teaspoon- 
ful of the other. Margie did not like cooking. 
She was not dextrous in mixing, and she could 
not use a knife without cutting her hands. 
Glenda outstripped her at every point, but when 
it came to examination, Margie was marked 97 
and Glenda scarcely passed. Margie knew the 
rules, and Glenda did not. Glenda could merely 
cook. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

A WAY OUT. 

Margie had shot up like a weed, till at seven- 
teen she was almost the tallest girl in her class. 
She was thin and inclined to stoop, and felt her- 
self awkward in the extreme. Her feet made so 
much noise when she walked, and her arms 
seemed in her way. When she danced she forgot 
all this, but at other times she felt uncomfortably 
conscious of her body and limbs. 

There was a teacher of elocution and physical 
culture in the school, but her speech was sarcastic, 
and her manner critical. It was possible for 
Margie to advance only when she felt approval 
in a teacher. She longed intensely to possess ease 
of manner, and tried not to feel embarrassed in 
the teacher’s presence, but all to no avail. It hap- 
pened just then that a former acquaintance of 
Mrs. Carlin, who lived in St. Anthony, decided to 
open a studio for the teaching of physical culture 
and expression in Centropolis. She came to Mrs. 
Carlin and proposed a very agreeable arrange- 
232 


A WAY OUT 


^ 33 , 


ment. She would come to Centropolis twice a 
week, see to her classes, and spend the night with 
the Carlins. In exchange for this, in order that 
she might feel under no obligations, she said 
Betty and Margie were to join one of her classes. 
Margie was delighted. Mrs. Morgan was al- 
ways perfectly at ease, and she herself never lost 
her self-consciousness except in the excitement of 
a debate. She fancied that if she knew exactly 
what to do with her hands and feet they would 
annoy her less, for she had discovered that know- 
ing what to say made her at ease in speaking. 

Mrs. Morgan was so kind and approach- 
able that it seemed easy to learn from her. 
One of the first things she said Margie never 
forgot. 

“We begin,” she said, “with the grace of un- 
consciousness. All little children are graceful. 
After this, there are three stages of development. 
The awkwardness of ignorance, the awkward- 
ness of self-conscious knowledge, and the grace 
of ingrained, unconscious knowledge.” 

Margie instantly applied this. She knew that 
she felt awkward when she sat down and when 
she rose. It was because she did not know how 
to do it. She asked Mrs. Morgan to show her 
how. 

“Put one foot a little farther back than the 
other,” Mrs. Morgan said. “Rest your weight 
on it, and sit down with the body erect. Rise in 


234 


HEART OF A GIRL 


the same way without bending at the waist. 
Stand with your weight forward, and walk as 
tall as you can.” 

This was exactly what Margie wanted to 
know. She determined to practise being grace- 
ful. Her mother and Betty never seemed ill at 
ease. They seemed to know instinctively so 
many things which she had consciously to learn. 
She felt that now, knowing what was wrong, and 
how to remedy it, she could find a way out from 
under the weight of self-consciousness. 

It happened that the very next evening Mrs. 
Carlin and Betty went to a concert. They were 
no sooner out of the house than Margie ran up 
to the room she and Betty occupied, and set to 
work. With a little tilting, the long glass over 
the dresser showed her her full figure. She drew 
a chair in front of it and sat down as she usually 
did. 

“It’s true,” she said aloud. “I do double up 
like a jack-knife. I sit down first and find the 
chair afterward.” 

She rose and stood, heels together, before the 
chair. Then, mentally counting “One,” she put 
her right foot back in the first position in danc- 
ing. “Two,” and she bent her knees a little. 
“Three,” she bent at the hips and seated herself. 
This certainly effected a better result, but was 
jerky. She did it again without counting. It 
went better that way, but she had not asked Mrs. 


A WAY OUT 


235 

Morgan what to do with her arms. She had 
kept them folded, and jerked herself out of the 
chair with them. Graceful women never sat 
with folded arms. 

“I’ll let them dangle,” she said to herself. 
This brought them stiffly to her sides. Clearly, 
it would not do. “I’ll relax them and draw them 
up a little,” she thought. 

This was better. Her hands fell carelessly in 
her lap. The whole thing seemed to her ridicu- 
lous, but she kept on. 

“I will find out how people do to feel at ease 
even if it is silly,” she said. 

She rose and sat, and sat and rose till every 
muscle ached, but she learned in the end just how 
the thing ought to be done to look best in the 
glass. It was going to be a great comfort to her, 
she felt, to lose self-consciousness. She tried 
greeting a stranger, too. She had always known 
that in her own home she was to give her hand to 
everybody, and never to sit while elderly ladies 
were standing, but in shaking hands, did you lift 
your hand as soon as you entered a room, and 
walk across with it in the air, or did you raise it 
just when you wanted to shake hands? This 
was a matter she had never been sure of, but she 
felt that her way of shaking hands was pump- 
handle in its stiffness. 

“I suppose if you could be as glad to see people 
as you ought to be, you wouldn’t feel awkward,” 


HEART OF A GIRL 


236 

she said, “but the gladder I am the more shut up 
inside myself I feel.” 

She walked toward the mirror time after time. 
Every time the greeting she gave the figure in it 
seemed clumsy. 

“I’ll make believe it’s Julia,” she thought. 

“Why, Julia!” she said. Her hand went out 
impulsively and heartily just at the right instant. 

“You put it out just the minute you begin 
to say ‘Howdy do,’ ” she thought. “I see how 
it ought to be now. That’s the way it looks 
best.” 

Back and forth between the alcove, where the 
bed stood, and the mirror, she went, studying her 
reflection impersonally. Walking tall was a 
splendid idea. It gave one the “active chest” 
Mrs. Morgan was always talking about. 

“It’s all silly for anybody but me,” she kept 
thinking, “but once I know how, I shan’t get in 
my own way again.” 

The door behind her opened noiselessly. She 
caught Betty’s reflection in the glass. Oh, if 
Betty had seen I Betty would think her vain and 
laugh. Betty couldn’t understand that it was not 
vanity, but merely a wish to be comfortable as 
other people were. She stared steadily into the 
glass. 

“What in the world are you doing?” Betty 
asked. 

“Oh, are you there?” Margie asked. “I was 


A WAY OUT 


237 


trying that exercise Mrs. Morgan gave us about 
opening the hand from the centre evenly. It’s 
funny how your fingers wobble. Can you do it?” 

“No,” said Betty. 

Betty had not seen. Margie’s practising of 
grace remained her secret. 

Margie learned the free-hand exercises, the 
dumbbell movements, the wand drill, and the 
Indian club swinging readily. The rhythm of 
them all made it easy. They were all a part of 
this new idea of breaking out of one’s-self, and 
expressing one’s-self freely. Margie became 
Mrs. Morgan’s assistant in afternoon classes of 
small girls, and had no trouble whatever in hold- 
ing their attention. In exchange for this, Mrs. 
Morgan taught her to read and to recite. 

They worked a long time on a story in rhyme 
Margie had written. It was an anecdote she had 
heard of General Rowett, in Gordonsville, a story 
of the war-time. TheGeneral, in command some- 
where down in Georgia, had ridden out one 
morning on Charley, his Kentucky thorough- 
bred, to learn why a reconnoitering party, sent 
out the night before, had not returned. He rode 
along a country road in the spring morning, and 
passed through a gate, which he closed behind 
him. Then thinking he saw his men across a 
field to the right, he galloped in that direction, 
till somebody on the road shouted: “Catch him, 
boys! It’s that devil of a Dick Rowett.” All 


HEART OF A GIRL 


238 

the men in sight were Confederates. They had 
the General in a trap. He wheeled about and 
shouted “Go I” to his horse, and made for the 
gate. The cry and the shout brought back to 
the horse his race-track days. He had never 
been a hunter, but he cleared the gate. A bullet 
stung him on one flank. Another bullet carried 
away the General’s hat, but no following horse 
rose to the gate. 

The story thrilled Margie, but when first she 
tried to repeat her verses, self-consciousness held 
her back. With Mrs. Morgan she learned that 
to see the whole picture was the first thing. “Be 
the General,” said Mrs. Morgan. “Then don’t 
think of this gesture or that. Be the General.” 

Margie tried it that way after she had learned 
to feel so sure of her hands that she forgot them. 
She remembered how the General had told the 
story before her once. She could feel the horse 
under her. She could feel the heavy gate as it 
swung open and shut again. She could see the 
men across the field. The sun was in her eyes. 
She heard the shout, the slow instant of turning, 
then 


“Spur on Charley’s flank of satin. 
Jockey’s hand on Charley’s reins. 
And the old Kentucky blue grass 
Throbs to life in Charley’s veins, 
‘Gol’ ” 


A WAY OUT 


239 


Oh, the wild gallop, the leaning forward, the 
strain, the dare-deviltry of it all, the wild leap 
over the gate, and the reckless taunt of defiance 
the General flung back! And there was Ken- 
tucky blue grass in her veins, too, and the Gor- 
dons were fighting stock. 

“I didn’t know you could break loose,” said 
Mrs. Morgan. “That was real.” 

It was easy after that to break loose, for you 
knew how, and the people who heard you had to 
see, they had to see what you saw. You hadn’t 
to think of gestures. Now and then your hands 
made this motion or that, but you didn’t notice. 
For the most part you stood still and felt. You 
were a part of the bravery and the romance of 
war, and you were Dare-devil Dick Rowett. 

Margie called the story “The General’s 
Ride,” and recited it several times at Mrs. Mor- 
gan’s recitals. She could not do sentimental or 
pathetic things, only something that stirred her, 
something she could break loose on. 

What Mrs. Morgan taught her made debat- 
ing easier. She practised diligently the exercises 
for the voice, learning to speak with a more open 
throat. She found that it was not necessary to 
speak in a higher key, as many of the girls did 
when they wanted to be heard. She merely let 
herself loose on her voice, and it carried to the 
farthest corner of the room. She knew it did, 
for there was sure to be somebody back by the 


240 HEART OF A GIRL 

door, and one could tell at once whether he 
heard. 

It was a day of great triumph for her when 
the chairman of the Committee on Arrange- 
ments came to ask her to speak in the debate to 
which the St. Anthony High School had chal- 
lenged Centropolis. She had never lost a debate, 
and of all the Juniors only herself and Sam 
Willis, a Brilliant, were asked to speak, and not 
one other girl on either side. The debate was 
on the question of strikes, and Centropolis up- 
held the right of labor to strike if it chose. 

The Assembly Hall was crowded with visitors 
that night. Margie’s heart beat fast as she 
walked down the aisle and took her seat beside 
Sam Willis and the other debaters. It was fine 
to be in the fight, not for the Utile Dukes alone, 
but for Centropolis, the honor of the whole 
school. She was in the after-debate only, but 
the fighting would be the hottest then. She 
would be fighting for more than Centropolis 
even. She would be showing the world that 
girls asked no odds. They met boys on their 
own ground, and fought shoulder to shoulder 
with them. 

All the speeches had been prepared before- 
hand. The leaders had considered what points 
the opposition would make, and given to each 
debater a point to refute. Margie had her speech 
by heart, but Sam Willis, in his excitement, cov- 


A WAY OUT 


241 


ered the ground assigned to her. She was be- 
wildered. What could she say now ? Were the 
girls to have no chance to show what girls could 
do? 

She heard the St. Anthony debater tell of 
cattle left sidetracked during a strike, so that 
they died of starvation. This, he said, was what 
happened when railway employees struck. He 
sat down. 

“It’s your turn,” whispered one of the leaders. 

“I haven’t anything to say,” Margie whis- 
pered back. “Sam made my point.” 

“Get up ! Get up !” the boys were saying all 
about her. “Say something. Don’t be afraid.” 

Afraid? A girl afraid? Margie stood out 
in the aisle and turned to the audience. 

“Mr. Chairman,” she said. 

“The affirmative has the floor,” said the chair- 
man. 

Margie waited till everybody’s eyes were on 
her. 

“And what happens when railroad men do 
not strike?” she said slowly. “Do cattle alone 
die then? Do you know why the engineers on 
the B. and L. struck last year?” 

She paused. Somebody she had met in Ne- 
braska had told her of the strike, but was it the 
B. and L. ? 

“They struck because of long hours, inhu- 
manely long hours. Do you remember the rail- 


24-2 


HEART OF A GIRL 


way accident on that road? The company said 
an engineer disobeyed orders, but the men knew. 
The engineer was asleep. He had been on duty 
thirty-six hours, and the lights danced before 
him till green seemed to be where red really was. 
He could not leave his post because his pay 
would have been docked if he had not kept on. 
He was poor. The company was rich. If he 
had objected to their rules he would have been 
discharged. He went to sleep in his engine, and 
he died under it. More than cattle died then. 
Back beside one of the wrecked coaches a little 
girl ran up and down. She was looking for her 
mother. She wanted her mother, and they were 
afraid to let her see the thing that had been her 
mother. More than cattle died then. More 
than cattle always will die unless the laboring 
man is able, by striking, to get justice from his 
employers. He must strike. , It is the only 
weapon of the thousands of oppressed workers. 
They must strike till the last armed foe expires, 
strike for their altars and their fires. Strike for 
the green graves of their sires, God and their 
native land!” 

The hall rang with it. Centropolis, in the 
opinion of the judges, had presented the most 
telling arguments. Centropolis won. Margie 
did not feel that she had won, but, at least, she 
had helped, and, best of all, she had thought on 
her feet. 


A WAY OUT 


243 


“We’ll debate again next year,” Sam Willis 
said. “I suppose I’ll be leader then, and you’ll 
be my second.” 

And Sam was the best debater in all the class. 

Margie betook herself to her study of Physical 
Culture and Expression, with zeal. Next year’s 
debate was a definite point to work toward. 

At Easter, an old school friend of Mrs. Car- 
lin, Mrs. Harper, who lived in a town twenty 
miles away, wrote to ask Margie down to assist 
in a church entertainment. She knew that Mar- 
gie was Mrs. Morgan’s assistant, and she wanted 
to get up a class in Physical Culture in her town, 
with Margie for teacher. The idea struck Mar- 
gie as ridiculous. What did she know about real 
physical culture ? However, it could do no harm 
to go down and give an exhibition at a church 
entertainment. Afterward, if Mrs. Harper got 
up a class she could at least teach what Mrs. 
Morgan had taught her. It would mean money, 
and she needed money for her share in the enter- 
tainments the class gave now and then. She 
wrote out, from consultation with Mrs. Mor- 
gan’s books, several speeches on Physical Cul- 
ture, and, amazed at her temerity, took the train 
for Greenville. 

Mrs. Harper had done more than was ex- 
pected. She had asked a number of women 
who had daughters to come in the afternoon 
and talk things over with Miss Carlin. Talk- 


244 


HEART OF A GIRL 


ing things over resolved itself into giving an 
exhibition. Margie had taken cold the day be- 
fore, and there was already a sharp pain in 
her side when she lifted her arms, but the desire 
to do her best spurred her on. She went through 
all the exercises she knew, dumbbells, wands, 
and clubs, without a moment’s rest. The pain 
grew worse. 

After dinner they went to the church. There 
were many numbers on the programme and 
three were Margie’s. The pain was now a 
thing that stabbed her when she breathed. 
First, she gave the dumbbell drill. Next she 
swung the clubs. The waltz music helped with 
that. Mrs. Harper came to tell her that ten 
pupils were already assured her. She felt weak 
and dizzy when she went on for the wand 
drill. The pianist played a march for her. 
He played faster than she had been used to 
hearing the piece. All the wa.y through she won- 
dered how she should be able to do the last 
motion. In It the wand was held with both 
hands at arms’ length before the chest. Then 
the wand went back over the head and down, 
the arms turning In their sockets at the shoulders, 
but not bent at the elbows. One, In each bar of 
music, was the wand In front; two, the wand 
was at the length of the arms behind the body. 
In two bars one counted eight, and then, with 
a salute, lowered the wand. How could she do 


A WAY OUT 


245 


It with this stabbing pain in her side, and the 
music so fast? Must she give up, and let all the 
girls who were to take lessons from her see that 
she could not do it? Suppose she said she was 
ill ? The audience looked a blur. She shut her 
teeth. “I won’t give in,” she said. One, two, 
three, four, five, six, seven, and then eight, only 
half a beat behind the piano. 

“I won’t give in,” she said again. Physical 
culture was supposed to make one’s health per- 
fect. Very well, then, one must keep up. 

She went home with Mrs. Harper and her 
daughter, who lived alone in a large house which 
they no longer had money enough to keep up. 
Their bed-room was upstairs at the back of the 
house. Margie went to bed in what had been the 
front parlor downstairs. The pain was fearful 
now. She thought of asking for a mustard-plas- 
ter, but would not that look as if Physical Culture 
was a failure? How could you have a pain in 
your lungs if the exercises really did for one what 
you tald those ladies they did? Margie huddled 
under the bed-clothes, trying to get warm. She 
would take the early train home, and then she 
would give in. She dozed a little, by and bye, 
feeling feverish, but she sprang awake from 
sheer terror of the pain and the dark. The house 
was full of strange noises. The walls seemed to 
mutter, and the door — yes, the door creaked. 
Margie remembered that it had no lock. Surely, 


246 


HEART OF A GIRL 


it was opening. Something was in the room. 
She could not cry out, but she sat bolt upright, 

, terror-stricken, for what seemed to her hours. 
Then something struck the bed beside her. 

“Miaouw?” said a friendly, questioning voice. 

Margie reached out and gathered the cat to 
her. The animal purred contentedly and licked 
her face. The pain was better with another 
soul, in a warm body, a friendly, loving, com- 
forting soul beside her. She slept with the cat 
nestled on her shoulder till a six-o’clock whistle 
blew somewhere. The early train would pass 
through in less than half an hour. She sprang 
up and threw on her clothes, smoothed her hair 
as best she could, seized her bag and ran. She 
could write and explain to Mrs. Harper after- 
ward. Of course, she would take the class, but 
just now, the one thing was to get away — no 
matter how she looked — to get home where she 
could give in, and call for a mustard plaster. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE. 

The Class of ’90 had been a hundred strong 
as Fourths. As Seniors they numbered exactly 
sixty, forty girls and twenty boys. They stood 
now high above the rest of the school, and drew 
nearer together, for the heights are not spacious 
like the plains. Margie wrote herself Margaret 
Holyoke Carlin. It looked as impressive as 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. To her contributions 
in the school paper, she signed “Car.” It was 
careless and bohemian and reminded one of Boz. 
She had been Margie in Gordonsville. For a 
time, during the Julia period, she had called her- 
self Madge, which was a dashing name. Ella 
called her Marguerite. Now, even Glenda was 
requested to remember to say Margaret. 

She and Glenda remained partners rather than 
friends, and Margie was on terms of studying- 
together intimacy with half a dozen girls. There 
was a sort of armed neutrality between her and 
Marcia Duncan, who had tattled. Marcia’s only 
weakness was her admiration for Miss Marshall. 

247 


HEART OF A GIRL 


248 

Florence Hawley, editor-in-chief of the High 
School, was a pleasant acquaintance both in 
school and out. So was Mabel Rohlfs, whose 
father had fought under Margie’s uncle in the 
war. These girls were leaders; leaders, more- 
over, in a democracy. There was no breaking up 
into sets in school, whatever these were out of 
it. The outside world and the positions their 
families occupied in it, had little to do with 
school life. They all came to class entertain- 
ments, danced together, romped together. There 
were no sentimental attachments. Boys and 
girls worked and played together with no 
thought of romance. If they had preferences, 
they showed them frankly, and were neither 
embarrassed nor bold. 

Margie liked all these boys, because she was 
interested in the things that interested them. 
Her tastes were boyish rather than ladylike. 
And from the beginning of the Senior year, her 
best friend was Walter Van Gelder. Walter 
was the son of one of the richest men in Cen- 
tropolis, but Margie did not know this until 
after they had become firm friends. Indeed, she 
was drawn to him first by reading in the Sentinel 
of the failure of a man named Van Gelder. 
When she and Glenda and Florence Hawley 
and Sam Willis studied their Virgil together in 
the library, about the big table, that day after 
school, as was their custom, she was glad to see 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 249 

Walter come in, and asked him to join them. 
Afterward Walter walked home with her. He 
was a big fellow, but nearly a year younger than 
she was. 

“Was that your father I read about in the 
paper this morning?” she asked. 

“No, that was. my third or fourth cousin,” 
Walter answered. 

“I’m glad of that,” Margie said, heartily. 

“Would your mother mind if I drove you 
home, from school afternoons?” Walter asked. 
“I can have the horse seat down, you know.” 

“You can ask her,” said Margie. 

“I will,” Walter said. “I’d like to be friends 
with you, more than with anybody else.” 

“That’s good of you,” said Margie, laughing. 
Walter laughed, too. He was a merry boy, and 
absolutely honest and simple. 

“I used to go around with my sister,” he said, 
“but she’s gone off to school now.” 

“Are you going to college next year?” Margie 
asked. 

“If I can get in. Father wants me to go to 
Yale.” 

“My grandfather graduated there,” said 
Margie, “but father is a Dartmouth man.” 

“My father never went to college,” said 
Walter. “He had to earn his living from the 
time he was fourteen. I hate to study, but 
father wants me to, so I do. I wish I could get 


250 HEART OF A GIRL 

the smiling face from Papa Brown the way you 
do.” 

“Let’s study Latin together after this.” 

“All right,” said Walter. 

Margie felt toward him a little as she had felt 
toward Fred Douglas, the dog, in Gordonsville. 
He looked at her with Fred’s eyes. He seemed 
in sqme way helpless and dependent. She liked 
Walter, not as she had cared for Julia, nor as 
she had cared for Fred, and as time went on she 
grew to feel that he belonged to her. She was 
surer of him than she had ever been of anyone 
else. She thought she would have felt the same 
way toward a brother if she had one. Walter 
was the most comfortable person to be with she 
had ever known. He seemed to radiate health 
and strength and peace of mind. You never had 
to feel that you. were shoving him, working with 
him, straining to help him when he recited or 
when he spoke in debate. He was too simple 
and manly ever to be embarrassed or ridiculous, 
and while he was by no means brilliant, he was 
not at all dull. Everybody liked him, and he 
liked everybody who liked Margie. Many a 
rough place he made smooth for her. Also, a 
suggestion made to him was sure to be carried 
out by the boys. 

The girls of ’90 were more spirited than their 
predecessors had been. In the General Debating 
Society the boys had always held the important 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 2 5 1 


offices and conducted affairs in their own way. 
It was only when the Class of ’90 became Seniors 
that the girls began to long for power. Their 
forty votes had gone to swell the majority of 
Louis Horton, who had been class president in 
the Junior year, and wore a moustache. They 
had worked side by side with the boys», but now 
they began to feel that man must be shown his 
inferiority. 

“The girls ought to run the school,” Glenda 
said, and Marcia and Florence and Mabel 
agreed with her. Margie didn’t. She preferred 
working with the boys, to being their antago- 
nists. She would not admit that boys were su- 
perior to girls, but they certainly did add weight 
to things. She did not care for soprano choruses, 
in fact. She liked to debate' against boys, but 
she wanted to debate with them, too. Boys went 
ahead and did things with less talk than girls; 
they fought fairer, and could fight on the floor, 
too, without carrying the fight anywhere else. 
They seemed to her less petty than girls. No, 
decidedly, she did not care for a' school run en- 
tirely by the girls. 

It was early in the school year that Margie 
felt a secret in* the air. Glenda and Marcia and 
Florence were often whispering together. After 
a time on the notice board in the hall, and on the 
blackboard in Miss Marshall’s room, where the 
Seniors sat, there appeared one day a mysterious 


252 


HEART OF A GIRL 


symbol. It consisted of two circles, one over- 
lapping the other. That afternoon, after school, 
the girls disappeared to an upper class-room, 
and Margie and Walter studied in the library 
alone. 

By another week, half of the girls in the class 
were holding up the thumbs and forefingers of 
each hand, linked together in rings, when they 
met. Margie asked Glenda what it meant. 

“It’s our secret society, the Boadiceans,” 
Glenda said. 

“What’s it for?” asked Margie. 

“It’s to run things,” said Glenda. 

The idea amused Margie at first. Of course, 
ihe girls couldn’t run things. A little later 
she began to feel vexed. It was not pleasant 
to be left out of things. Glenda and Mabel, 
and Florence* and even' Marcia, for all her ad- 
miration of Miss Marshall, were not silly. 
Whatever th6y set out to do, they would do. 
Sam Willis called the Boadiceans a lot of crow- 
ing hens. Tom Newman said girls made him 
tired. This roused Margie to side with the girls, 
and she was annoyed that she had not been asked 
to join. She was not hurt nor humiliated. It 
was merely that her idea of herself as a leader in 
the school suffered a setback. Glenda finally 
disclosed the reason for the leaving out. 

“Why don’t you apply for admission?” she 
asked. 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 253 

“Is that the way people get in?” 

“Yes,” said Glenda. “It was Marcia’s idea.” 

Margie immediately saw through the whole 
thing. Marcia, had not wanted her to be one 
of the organizers. Marcia had more than once 
accused her of wanting to boss too much in the 
Utile Dulces. Marcia wanted to boss the 
Boadiceans herself, and keep others out till she 
had it all in her own hands. 

“I don’t think I’d care to ask to join any 
society,” she said to Glenda. 

And she said to herself : 

“Just you wait. They’ll ask me some time, 
and then maybe I will and maybe I won’t.” 

She knew that in the Thirds, because of Clara 
Holcomb, she had a large following. And the 
new Fourths followed dumbly the lead of the 
Thirds, looking up to them. Anybody who 
could debate impressed them. Any Senior was 
great to a Third and to a Fourth. Only between 
Juniors and Seniors was there any rivalry, 
though, naturally, the two lower classes lacked 
respect for Juniors, and were pleased when the 
Seniors flouted them. 

It was the custom to leave class banners un- 
disturbed till a fortnight after school began. 
Then the new Seniors moved their banner from 
Junior place, at the right of the stage, to Senior 
place at the left, and the new Juniors hung their 
banner in Junior place. 


254 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Now, the Class of ’91 was not proud of its 
banner. They had bought it when they were 
Fourths, and ill-advised. It had cost them 
forty dollars, but they had chanced on a banner- 
maker who was not expert, and had chosen 
a motto somewhat difficult to reproduce in 
satin letters. Their banner was brown plush, 
with the words, “Aut viam inveniam, aut 
faciam,’^ in yellow satin letters. There was a 
tradition that those same members of ’91, as 
Fourths, had undertaken to give a reception in 
the Assembly Hall in honor of their banner, and 
outraged Juniors had poured w'ater on the forty- 
dollar emblem. At any rate, the letters were not 
free from disfiguring puckerings, and ’91 was 
sensitive about the banner, so sensitive that they 
talked of it more vaingloriously than was neces- 
sary or even wise. 

The dark green and Nile green and silver of 
’90 looked not only elegant, but neat, and ’90 
greeted the banner’s first appearance in Senior 
place with cheers. It was on a morning when 
several Seniors were required to read essays from 
the stage. Margie was among them, and she 
had written for the occasion a poem in dactyllic 
hexameter in praise of ’90. 

For ages, she said, the Spirit of Genius had 
been seeking a company with whom she might 
abide. After long wanderings, at the close of a 
day, she found what she sought. 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 255 

“Softly the violet eyes of the beautiful gloaming 
were closing, 

Lulled by the whispering winds, the new moon 
a taper to bed-ward. 

The mists stealing up from the river. 

The night gliding downward to meet them. 

And the Lethe of silence and evening 
Was soothing the city to slumber. 

Then rested the Spirit of Genius 
In the sky like a star o’er the city. 

And silently folding her pinions. 

Like a star through the twilight descended.” 

She paused by the Greek-lettered cornerstone 
of the High School, which Margie described 
as a temple. 

“She paused at the gates of a temple. 

Where dim in the deepening twilight 
She saw, carved in granite, some words 
Of the tongue she had spoken with Homer. 

As, when wandering in a great city, 

’Mid the thousands of strange faces passing. 
One sees the dear face of a friend. 

And joyful advances to meet him. 

So, to the heart of the Spirit, 

For centuries banished from Hellas, 

Came the sight of that sentence in Greek, 
Carven there on the wall of the temple.” 

The spirit entered and passed to the inner- 


256 HEART OF A GIRL 

most shrine, where banners of departed heroes 
hung. 

“Nearest the close-curtained shrine 
Two banners hung, bearing devices. 

Carefully dusted and tended. 

Still breathing the smoke of the battle. 

One 

Here Margie turned toward the brown and 
yellow banner of ’91. 

“ of the color of oak leaves. 

When the winter has wrinkled and killed them. 
Lifeless and dull, emblematic, with a wavering 
motto, the color 

Foul jealousy dresses herself in, since time when 
Time had his beginning. 

Seeing, the Spirit frowned, moved away and 
looked up at the other. 

The other, made all of the hue that the balsam 
tree wears in December, 

Vigorous, spring-like forever, though bitter the 
frost and the winter. 

On it a modest device, ‘Palma non sine pulvere,’ 
Made all of shimmering silk, like the glint of the 
moon on the water. 

Emblem of hope high above the affairs of life, 
lighting its darkness. 

Trimmings of glistening silver, that lines clouds 
of bitterest sorrow.’’ 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 257 

The Spirit of Genius then, ^^arma ad sidera 
tollens/^ burst forth into a eulogy of ’90. Fame 
had long whispered of their “modesty, beauty 
and wit, their wisdom, their kind condescension.” 

“Here, by your banner I stand,” she said, and 
Margie turned toward the green and silver. 


“And, laying her white hand upon it. 

Here is my home and my people. 

And here will I rest me forever. 

And forever, while Time turns his hour-glass. 
Fame shall herald the praises of ’90, 

And as a coral reef grows 

Round the top of some slow-sinking mountain. 
So your glory forever shall grow. 

While into the sea of oblivion 

The fame of your schoolmates shall sink. 

Fading into the water unnoticed.” 

“Soft in the eastern sky the pale light of morn- 
ing is breaking, 

Swiftly the darkness flies before Phoebus’ gallop- 
ing horses. 

And as the city awakes and the devotees flock to 
the temple. 

The Spirit wraps round her her cloak, and in- 
visible, floating in ether. 

Rests there by the side of the banner, the banner 
of genius and ’90.” 


HEART OF A GIRL 


258 

The Class of ’91 hissed. It was larger than 
the Class of ’90, but one cheer is louder than ten 
hisses, and ’90 cheered. Ninety-one had to wait 
two months before it could retaliate. The 
verses, by Mr. Harmon’s request, were printed 
in the High School World, and the poet of ’9 1 
printed his answer in the number after that. His 
poem was in pentameter, and he called ’90’s 
banner the emblem of “verdant greenness,” 
which at once became his nickname. “Verdant 
Greenness Johnson” he was all the rest of his 
school life. 

Ninety, however, could act at once. No later 
than the next day Marcia came with an invita- 
tion to Margie to join the Boadiceans. 

“I’ll think it over,” said Margie. 

She had not been invited to join the Inner Con- 
centrics, but merely to become a Boadicean. The 
Inner Concentrics were all Seniors, and were the 
heart of the thing. A Junior or a Third, or 
even a Fourth, might be an Outer Concentric. 
The Outer Concentrics could hold no offices. 

When Marcia came again, it was to ask her 
if she would not like to be an Inner Concentric. 

“Very much, indeed,” said Margie. 

“But don’t tell that I broke the rule and asked 
you,” said Marcia. 

“I won’t tell,” said Margie. 

One thing Margie had never learned to do 
gracefully, and that was to take a practical joke. 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 259 

April the first was a day to which she always 
looked forward with dread. She never played 
practical jokes on anyone, and in all her poking 
fun never intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings, 
and she could not be the victim of a pleasantry 
without losing her temper. She was well aware 
of this, and knew that the girls were aware of 
it, too. She felt that Marcia would instigate 
something very unpleasant at her initiation. The 
girls would do their best to make her ridiculous. 
However, she wanted to fight Marcia on even 
grounds as an Inner Concentric. If Marcia did 
make the initiation unpleasant, so much the 
worse for Marcia afterward. At all events, she 
would keep her temper and do her best to come 
out of the thing with honor. 

The Boadiceans, by special permission of Mr. 
Harmon, held their initiations in the Senior room 
at dead of night, which, for practical reasons, 
was made seven o’clock. 

Margie had been told to come at eight, for 
there was another candidate to be initiated first. 
Margie hoped that the girls would have their 
fun out on Ruth Webster, so that she should be 
let off lightly. She did not like Marcia, but she 
felt toward her as she had never before felt 
toward anyone she disliked. She was just to her, 
and respected her. One did not defeat Marcia 
easily. 

Having their fun out with Ruth Webster, 


26 o 


HEART OF A GIRL 


however, made things no easier for Margie when 
the girls began on her. Ruth was a delicate and 
sensitive girl, and they tortured her. They blind- 
folded her and made her stand on one foot and 
sing. They made her whirl round and round, 
saying the multiplication table. They made her 
tell her most precious secrets, and they ordered 
her to stand rigid while they tickled her. This, 
they told her solemnly, was to test her loyalty 
and her nerve. Then, with great solemnity, they 
prepared to set the seal of Boadicea on her. 

“You will not wince?” they asked her. 

“No,” said Ruth, feebly. 

“Is the brand hot?” some one asked. 

“At white heat,” was the response. 

Of course, Ruth knew they wouldn’t really 
bum her, but, at the same time, she fancied they 
might. They kept her blindfolded, and their 
talk was harrowing. 

Marcia rolled up Ruth’s sleeve. 

“Give me the iron!” she cried. Something 
warm passed Ruth’s face. There was an instant 
of fearful suspense, and then something was 
pressed against her arm. It felt like a hot iron. 
Ruth instantly screamed and fell to the floor. 
There she lay screaming and choking. 

“It was only ice,” the girls all cried. 

Ruth still screamed. 

“I’m dying. I’m dying,” she gasped. 

“Get a doctor!” cried Glenda. The other 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 261 


girls stood pale with terror. Marcia alone kept 
her head. 

“She’s got hysterics,” she said. “I’ll fix her.” 

She pulled Ruth to her feet, and slapped her 
in the face. Ruth stopped screaming and began 
to laugh quite as wildly as she had screamed. 
Marcia slapped her again. 

“I’ll hit harder if you don’t stop, you idiot,” 
she said. “Do you want to join this society, or 
don’t you?” 

Ruth stopped laughing and sat down breath- 
less. 

“Of course I do,” she said. 

“Well, stop acting like a baby, then.” 

“You scared me half to death. It felt ex- 
actly like a burn. I’m sorry I acted so silly.” 

It was distinctly Marcia’s triumph. Ruth 
bore no resentment, but she wanted to see how 
Margie would act when they branded her. 

“We won’t brand her,” said Marcia. “She 
wouldn’t mind that. We’ll jab pins into her.” 

“Oh, really and truly?” asked Ruth. 

“Wait and see.” 

At this moment Margie knocked at the door, 
knocked as she had been bidden to do, twice, 
waited a moment and knocked three times. This 
was necessary to avoid being mistaken for the 
janitor, who sometimes came to sweep out. He 
knocked only once. Mabel came out and blind- 
folded her. 


262 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Can you see anything?” Mabel asked. 

“Not a thing,” said Margie, who could see 
the floor perfectly well. Mabel led her in and 
shut the door. 

“Grand Tetrarch,” she said, “I bring a 
humble seeker.” 

“Bid her approach,” said the Grand Tetrarch. 

“It’s Glenda,” thought Margie. “I knew 
Marcia wouldn’t stand having her on the floor 
to argue.” 

“What does the humble seeker want?” the 
Tetrarch went on. “Speak, seeker.” 

“To join the Inner Concentrics, please, your 
Augustness,” said Margie. 

“What would you do?” 

“I would do all that doth become an Inner 
Concentric. Who dares do more is none.” 

“What’ll I tell her to do?” she heard Glenda 
whisper. 

“Tell her to swear,” whispered Marcia. 

“Swear!” said the Tetrarch. 

“Damn,” said Margie, promptly. 

Somebody giggled. 

“Not that way. Swear to keep the secrets 
of this mighty society and to do the bidding of 
its Council so long as you live. Swear on your 
honor.” 

“I swear,” said Margie, “on my honor.” 

“What can you do to deserve the honor of 
being an Inner Concentric?” the Tetrarch asked. 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 263 

‘‘Whatever you bid me do.” 

“Can you do nothing remarkable?” 

“Yes, I can move the top of my head.” 

“Do it,” they cried. 

Margie moved the top of her scalp. 

“Was it well done. Grand Inquisitor?” 

“Well done,” was the answer. Margie recog- 
nized Marcia’s voice. “Remarkably well done.” 

“Can you wag your ears, in addition to mov- 
ing your scalp?” Marcia asked. 

“Yes,” said Margie, and raising her hands, 
she moved her ears. 

Somebody giggled. 

“Grand Inquisitor, examine the candidate,” 
said the Tetrarch. Margie’s heart beat faster. 
This was Marcia’s chance, and Marcia would 
make the most of it. 

“We have here. Inner Concentrics,” said 
Marcia, “an example of reversion of the original 
type. The movable scalp, the wagging ear. 
The movable scalp is common to many animals, 
but what do the wagging ears suggest? Do 
they not make us think of a certain animal whose 
favorite food is thistles? The candidate shows 
us her real nature frankly, but let us hope she 
will not be too obstinate.” 

The Boadiceans laughed. Margie resolutely 
kept her expression, and hoped she had not 
flushed. 

“Confess now your worst fault,” Marcia went 


264 


HEART OF A GIRL 


on. “Speak the truth or you shall hear it from 
us. What is it?” 

“Conceit,” said Margie. 

“That’s what Marcia thought I wouldn’t ad- 
mit,” she said to herself. 

“You have not spoken truly,” said Marcia, 
“so you must bear the truth. What you mistake 
for conceit is an ordinary case of swelled head.” 

The girls laughed again. Margie began to 
boil inwardly. 

“Oh, wait till I get a chance to hit back,” she 
thought. 

“Why don’t you laugh?” said Marcia. 

“Was that a joke?” 

“No, it was the truth. Can you take a joke?” 

“No,” said Margie. 

“That means you cannot see one?” 

Margie’s answer was lost in jeers. 

“I don’t take all I see,” she said. “People 
are brought up so differently.” 

“Do you admire your own poetry?” 

“Immensely.” 

“Can you explain why?” 

“No more than I could explain color to the 
blind.” 

“Recite the poem you admire most.” 

Margie recited some verses beginning: 

“The rain had fallen. The poet arose. 

He passed by the town and out of the street.” 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 265 

The Boadiceans hissed at the end of every 
line. 

“Is that good, Inner Concentrics ?” Marcia 
asked. 

“The worst we ever heard,” they cried. “Did 
he get his feet wet? Tommy rot!” 

“Who would we say wrote it if we saw it in 
print?” asked Marcia. 

“Margaret Holyoke Carlin,” they cried. 

“I wouldn’t,” said Margie. “I’d say Tenny- 
son. He claims it. You told me to recite the 
poem I admired most. Tennyson is an English- 
man, and England is an island, and an island 


Hisses and laughter drowned out the rest. 

“Do you feel yourself competent to preside 
over a parliamentary body?” Marcia asked. 

“I do.” 

“Suppose a motion to reconsider a vote on 
suspension of rules was offered. How large a 
vote would you say was necessary to carry it?” 

“Two-thirds,” said Margie. 

“Wrong,” said Marcia; “suspension of rules 
cannot be reconsidered. And you still think 
yourself competent to preside over a parliament- 
ary body?” 

“I do.” 

“Must the vote on an amendment to a motion 
to lie on the table be unanimous, or only a 
majority?” 


266 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“I do not know.” 

“She does not know,” they all chanted. 

“Why don’t you know?” asked Marcia. 

“There has never been any vote for any one to 
count. Motion to table cannot be amended.” 

“Have you got Roberts’ here?” she heard 
Marcia whisper. 

“No,” somebody whispered back. Margie 
felt relieved. 

Marcia returned to the attack. 

“If I ask you a simple question, will you 
answer it by yes or no?” 

“I will,” said Margie. 

“Is it true that you have stopped passing other 
people’s essays off for yours in composition?” 

“Yes,” said Margie ; “I like to be unique.” 

“What do you expect to be after you grad- 
uate?” 

“An alumna,” said Margie. Her ambition 
was one thing she would not have the girls know. 

“Is it true that you hope to be a writer?” 

“I write a good hand now.” 

“Is it not true that rejected manuscript is ad- 
dressed to you at this school?” 

There was a shout of glee at this, for Margie 
whitened. 

It was true. Margie was hit, and hit hard. 
How did Marcia know? She could not know 
unless she had — yes, she must have seen Margie 
drop one envelope into her drawer in the draw- 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 267 

ing-room. She had been near enough to see a 
magazine name on it. She was in a rage now, 
and let herself go. 

“It is true,” Margie said. “Did you find the 
sort of pencil you wanted ? I have several more 
in that drawer.” 

“I never looked into your drawer,” said 
Marcia. 

“I beg your pardon, then,” said Margie. “It 
must have been over my shoulder you looked.” 

“I don’t look over shoulders!” 

“Not even cold ones?” 

This went home. Marcia had overlooked 
Margie’s cold shoulder after the episode of 
Clara Holcomb. She had asked Margie twice 
to become a Boadicean. 

“Stick to the ritual,” whispered Glenda. 

“Where were you born?” asked Marcia. 

“In Illinois.” 

“You were born a sucker, then?” 

“No one is born with teeth,” said Margie. 

“And your being born an Illinoisan is your 
reason for saying ‘grass’ and ‘can’t’ ?” Marcia 
imitated Margie’s short a’s. Marcia herself 
came from Boston and used the broad “a.” Also, 
she put “r” on after a’s and o’s, as the teacher in 
Nebraska had done. 

“Yes. It’s my reason, too, for not saying 
‘Minnesoter’ and ‘awr-inspiring.’ ” 

“Were your manners originally good?” 


268 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Of course. I was born in Illinois.” 

“Why have you changed them since you came 
to Minnesota?” 

“I began to meet people from Massachusetts, 
and I am by nature adaptable.” 

“So, you think people from Massachusetts are 
worth copying, then?” 

Laughter greeted this hit. 

“Yes.” 

“Why?” 

“It’s so pleasant not to have any feeling 
against looking at other people’s letters.” 

Marcia merely stored this up for future ref- 
erence. 

“Have you mentioned all your faults?” she 
asked. 

“No,” said Margie. “Most of them are as 
plain to be seen as the nose” — she meant to say 
“on your face,” but Marcia had a snub nose — 
“on my face,” she substituted. 

“That’s plain enough,” said Marcia, signifi- 
cantly. 

“They are as plain as — well, as freckles are.” 

Marcia was freckled. 

“One of them is being too easily per- 
suaded,” Margie went on. “You had to ask 
me only twice before I consented to join this so- 
ciety.” 

This slap, too, went home. Marcia had 
broken her own rule. 


THE POT AND THE KETTLE 269 

“Isn’t violating confidences another of them ?” 
Marcia asked. 

Margie had no answer ready. 

“Isn’t it?” repeated Marcia. 

“Glass houses are fragile,” said Margie. 

“Test her sense of smell,” said the Grand 
Tetrarch. “It’s in the list,” she added in a 
whisper. 

“Can you tell the difference between two kinds 
of perfume?” asked Marcia. 

“I can,” said Margie. 

A bottle of hartshorn was thrust under her 
nose suddenly. 

“What’s that?” asked Marcia. 

“Hartshorn,” said Margie. 

She saw from beneath the bandage over her 
eyes Marcia’s hand lifting a handkerchief to 
her. 

“What’s that?” Marcia asked. 

“Extract of vanilla,” said Margie. “Aren’t 
you going to let me smell a perfume?” 

The laugh was not all with Marcia now. 

“Is your hearing good?” asked Marcia. 

“Yes.” 

“Then why do you talk and never listen?” 

“I have listened this evening. I have heard.” 

“What have you heard here?” 

“Mainly the noise of two kinds of animals.” 

“Human being and — the animal that feeds on 
thistles?” 


270 


HEART OF A GIRL 


The Boadiceans laughed. 

“No,” said Margie; “snakes and geese.” She 
heard Glenda laugh. 

“And have you any good qualities to counter- 
balance your faults ?” Marcia asked 

“One.” 

“What is that?” 

“I am not a tattle-tale.” 

“Free the candidate from blindness and ex- 
tend to her the right hand of fellowship,” said 
the Grand Tetrarch. 

Marcia’s clasp was not cordial. 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE DAY OF THE POT. 

One of the closing ceremonies in each school 
year was a reception in honor of the president 
of the General Debating Society. He was al- 
ways a Senior, and it was his privilege to ap- 
point a successor in the person of a temporary 
chairman, who should preside at the first meeting 
of the society, in the next autumn, and resign his 
gavel to a properly elected president. Seniors 
had little care that the management of the 
World passed into Junior hands in March, but 
they clung to control of the General Society till 
the end of their class existence. 

The temporary chairman appointed by ’89 
was Louis Horton, who wore the only mous- 
tache in school. In spite of his moustache, 
he was not a boy of any great force, though a 
calm and capable presiding officer. He was 
somewhat slow in calling the society together for 
the election of officers in the fall, and days before 
that time the Supreme Council of the Boadi- 
ceans, which consisted of the officers only of that 
271 




272 


HEART OF A GIRL 


body, had arranged a slate of their own. Glenda 
was to be treasurer, and Mabel secretary. They 
wanted Florence Hawley, who was decidedly the 
most popular girl in school, to be president, but 
Florence declined. So in the end they decided 
to permit Louis Horton to retain the chair as 
president. So much they would grant to the 
boys, who, if driven too far, might leave the 
society altogether, which was a thing even 
Marcia did not desire. These plans were dis- 
cussed in secret meetings of the Council of the 
Boadiceans, and Margie, not being in the coun- 
cil, knew nothing of them. 

Now, it happened that on a morning early in 
October Louis Horton woke to his duty. He 
went at once to the notice board in the hall and 
posted a call for a meeting of the General So- 
ciety that same day after school, election of 
officers to be the business of the day. It is not 
beyond the bounds of possibility that Sam Willis 
and Tom Newman suggested the thing to him, 
for it was a day so stormy that half the school 
was absent, and not one member of the Inner 
Circle of the Boadiceans present. So few of 
the girls came to the meeting that the boys were 
for once almost in the majority, and they elected 
the slate that pleased them best. Sam and Tom 
wanted no offices. They preferred to be free 
to work on the floor, and in committees. Louis 
Horton was elected president by a unanimous 


THE DAY OF THE POT 


273 


vote, nor was there much opposition to any of 
the other candidates. The secretaryship, which 
was considered next in honor to the presidency, 
went to Will Holmes, a Senior. Somewhat of 
the same cloud that hung over Clara Holcomb 
darkened poor Willard’s home. His elder 
brother had absconded with the funds of a bank, 
and everybody knew it. His election gave gen- 
eral satisfaction. 

The morrow dawned clear and crisp. The 
Inner Council of the Boadiceans came back to 
school to learn, with intense indignation, what 
had been done during their absence. Once 
again, as in former years, the boys held all the 
offices of the General Society. 

“I don’t see why on earth you let them do it,” 
said Marcia to Margie. “You were there, 
weren’t you?” 

“Yes, but I didn’t see any reason to object.” 

“The Inner Council had a slate prepared,” 
said Marcia. 

“I’m not in the Inner Council,” said Margie. 
“So how was I to know? It can’t be helped 
now, anyway.” 

“Oh, yes, it can. It’s got to be,” said Marcia. 

The symbol of the Boadiceans appeared on all 
the blackboards, with the number “2.” Recita- 
tions were over at one, and in the hour’s wait 
most of the girls went out for lunch. 

Walter and Margie walked down to the con- 


274 


HEART OF A GIRL 


fectioner’s. Walter’s conception of what was 
due a girl friend meant unlimited candy. His 
artistic sense satisfied himself in matching Mar- 
gie’s ribbons or frock in the candy he bought. 
She was wearing a deep violet frock that day, so 
Walter bought candied violets. They were not 
especially good to eat, and costing more money 
than Walter happened to have about him, he 
asked to have them charged to his father. 

“Will your father like your doing that?” 
Margie asked, fearful because of the extrava- 
gance. 

“Why, of course,” said Walter. “I wouldn’t 
do it if I didn’t know that. Father gets more 
fun out of what I spend than out of what he 
spends himself. He couldn’t buy candy when 
he was a boy, you know. Don’t you want to 
get some more to take to the girls?” 

“I’ll divide this,” said Margie. “I’ve got to 
go back now to a meeting.” 

“Tom says he bets the girls are going to try 
to upset the election. I hope they won’t. I 
nominated Will Holmes, you know. I’d feel 
mighty mean if he was thrown out.” 

“The girls can’t do anything,” Margie said, 
confidently. “They can’t upset an election.” 

“Girls are mighty smart,” was Walter’s com- 
ment. 

And smart the Boadiceans were. They were 
gathered in full force when Margie returned. 


THE DAY OF THE POT 


275i 

Margie divided the candied violets generously. 
She was never fond of candy. 

“We are met together to consider important 
business,” said the Grand Tetrarch. “The 
Grand Inquisitor will explain.” 

Marcia took the floor. 

“It’s this way,” said she. “The boys got to- 
gether yesterday when most of us weren’t here, 
and elected officers for the General Debating So- 
ciety. Now, we don’t mind having Louis Hor- 
ton for president, but we’ve got to find some way 
to put those other boys out and elect the girls we 
want.” 

“I don’t see how we can do that,” said Mar- 
gie. “If you’d told us earlier we could have 
nominated girls. It’s too late now.” 

“No, it isn’t,” said Marcia. “All we have to 
do is to raise the point that no quorum was pres- 
ent at the election, and that therefore it is in- 
valid.” 

“But how can you prove that?” asked Ruth. 

“We can call for the minutes of the previous 
meeting, and add up the votes. I know already 
that there was not a quorum.” 

“How many makes a quorum?” asked Ruth. 

“A majority. Counting the Fourths, the total 
membership ought to be three hundred and fifty, 
or nearly that. I’ve looked it up. A quorum 
then would be one hundred and seventy-six, at 
the lowest.” 


HEART OF A GIRL 


276 

“But are the Fourths really members before 
the election of officers?” said Margie. “The 
first thing Louis Horton did, after he was 
elected, was to extend a welcome to the Fourths. 
‘You are now members of this society,’ he said, 
‘and entitled to vote on any question.’ Doesn’t 
that look as if they were not members till then ? 
They couldn’t be members, could they, under a 
temporary chairman ? A society doesn’t take in 
new members during a recess. Leaving out the 
Fourths, I think there was a majority of mem- 
bers present.” 

“That’s all bosh,” said Marcia. “The 
Fourths voted in election, didn’t they, and the 
secretary counted their votes?” 

“I don’t know,” said Margie. 

“Well, I know they did. They’re members, 
and helped to make a quorum. If they’re not 
members, the election is invalid because they 
voted. Either way, we can upset it.” 

“Mustn’t the point of no quorum be raised at 
the time?” asked Mabel. 

“No,” said Marcia. “We have votes enough 
to carry any question we choose, anyway. All 
we’ve got to do is to get this thing through 
quick before the boys find out what we’re up to. 
Twenty members can sign a call to a meeting at 
any time. It’s in our by-laws. We want a meet- 
ing for to-morrow. Then we’ll show those boys 
what we can do.” 


THE DAY OF THE POT 


277 

“The boys didn’t do it all,” said Margie. “A 
good many girls were there. I voted.” 

“Then you can properly move to reconsider.” 

“You can’t reconsider a vote.” 

“You can do anything if you’ve got enough 
people on your side,” said Marcia. “Now, 
when we call the meeting, and we have the elec- 
tion declared invalid. I’ll move that Louis Hor- 
ton be elected by a unanimous vote.” 

“That’s good,” said Margie. “Who’s to 
make the motion to have the election declared 
invalid?” 

“The Council has decided on you for that,” 
said Marcia. “It will be only to oust Will 
Holmes and two or three other boys.” 

“What do you want me to do it for?” Margie 
asked. 

“Because you can put it up best, and the 
Thirds always vote your way.” 

“I’d rather let somebody else do it,” said 
Margie. 

“Nobody else can do it so well,” said Mabel. 

“But it will make Will Holmes feel awfully 
bad,” said Margie. “It seems to me rather 
mean. I’d rather let somebody else do it.” 

“The Council decrees that you must do it,” 
said Glenda. 

Must was not a happy choice of words to a 
Gordon. 

“I won’t do it,” said Margie. “You want 


HEART OF A GIRL 


278 

me to get up there and do something that you all 
won’t do because it’s mean. Marcia will get 
credit for electing Louis Horton, and everybody 
will think that I started the fuss on my own 
hook. I’ll make nominations, but somebody else 
will have to start the thing. I won’t.” 

“You can’t refuse. You’ve sworn to do the 
bidding of the Council,” said Marcia. 

“When I swore that I thought the Council 
meant just the Inner Concentrics. You didn’t 
tell me a word about a Supreme Council. I do 
refuse. I won’t make that motion. I won’t be 
a cat’s-paw.” 

“You’d rather be a traitor to this society?” 

“Traitor, nonsense. I’m ready to do anything 
else, but I know just how Will Holmes will feel, 
and — well, I just won’t. I might if it was some- 
body else, but you all know how it is with Will 
Holmes.” 

“You weren’t so tender with Clara Hol- 
comb,” said Marcia. 

“She hadn’t been elected to anything,” said 
Margie. “I wasn’t the one, either, who told her 
what had been done.” 

“Fellow-Boadiceans,” said Marcia, “what 
penalty is imposed on those who go back on their 
word of honor, and refuse to do the bidding of 
the Council?” 

. “Disgrace and expulsion,” they chanted. 

“You won’t expel me,” said Margie, “ or 


THE DAY OF THE POT 279 

Pm going to quit right now. I don’t care a rap 
for your silly society, anyway, and I’m going to 
do as I please. I resign here and now.” 

“You can’t resign,” cried Marcia. “Girls, 
let’s expel her.” 

There Vas a rush for Margie. She made for 
the door. The Boadiceans caught her and com- 
pelled her to walk out backward. She was so 
angry that she kept her temper and laughed in 
their faces. 

“We have your oath still,” Marcia called out 
as the door closed after Margie. 

“Keep it,” shouted Margie. “Keep it, and 
welcome. You didn’t keep your own.” 

Outside the school-house Walter was waiting. 

Margie lived more than a mile from the 
school, and usually brought her lunch with her, 
as many of the girls did. There was always 
something to be looked up in the school library 
after school, or a group of boys and girls who 
liked to study together. Walter usually went 
home to luncheon or went to the restaurant not 
far away. “Cold things,” he said, “were not 
filling,” and the worst calamity he could imagine 
was going hungry. It was a settled thing now 
that his horse should be at the school-house door 
at three, and Walter never dreamed of conceal- 
ing the fact that it was there for Margie. As 
many other girls and boys as could find room to 
hang on the cart anywhere were welcome to ride 


28 o 


HEART OF A GIRL 


home, too, but only after Walter had asked 
Margie if she minded it. Margie was first. 

This afternoon Miss Marshall came out a 
little while before Margie appeared. She did 
not altogether approve Walter’s devotion to 
Margie, which she chose to interpret in her own 
way. 

“Waiting for somebody, Walter?” she asked, 
significantly. 

“Yes; I’m waiting for Margaret Carlin,” 
said Walter, simply, raising his hat. The idea 
of Miss Marshall’s disapproval had never 
dawned on him, and would not have disturbed 
him if it had. 

Margie burst out the door, pale with rage. 
Almost before Walter had helped her into the 
cart, she had told him the whole story. 

“I think you were right,” said Walter. “Of 
course you were, but they’ll have their way, any- 
way. You might just as well have given in. 
There’s so many of them, and they’ll be down 
on you.” 

“I don’t care,” said Margie, hotly. “It’s a 
mean trick, and if I’d done what they wanted 
me to, and the boys were mad, they’d have let 
everybody think it was all my own idea.” 

“That’s so,” said Walter. “But we can’t do 
anything.” 

Walter’s horse was a fast one, and Walter 
a reckless driver. Just then the cart crossed in 


THE DAY OF THE POT 281 


front of a cable car, clearing it by an inch. Mar- 
gie did not even hear the motorman’s yell of 
rage. 

“Yes, we can,” she insisted. “You just get the 
boys to hang together, and stick to their ticket. 
Don’t let anybody debate after a nomination.” 

They had turned into a wide, quiet street now, 
and Walter drove slower. The grass plots in 
front of the houses were gay with flaming salvia 
and foliage plants. The trees were yellow and 
crimson, and the October afternoon was mellow 
with haze and warmth. Margie sat bolt up- 
right, her teeth set. 

“But they’re two to one against us,” said 
Walter. 

“That won’t make any difference,” said Mar- 
gie. 

Walter was distressed. 

“Say we go get some ice-cream,” he said. 

“I don’t want anything to eat,” said Margie. 

“Wouldn’t you like to drive out to the lake 
and see if we can find some violets?” 

“No,” said she. “I want to go to Clara Hol- 
comb’s. Please take me there.” 

They drove out on an avenue which skirted 
the edge of the bluff. The lower town lay bask- 
ing in the smoky blue haze. Walter met a great 
many people he knew. Margie saw nothing. 
She was turning over in her mind a slowly de- 
veloped scheme of revenge. 


202 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Please don’t wait for me at Clara’s,” she 
said. “I’ll just walk home from there.” 

“All right,” said Walter. 

They passed a gentleman walking. 

“Hello, boy,” he said. 

“I’ll be back and pick you up in a minute,” 
Walter called to him. 

“That’s my father,” he explained to Margie. 

Margie looked back absently. Mr. Van 
Gelder was sitting on the low wall which fenced 
in a lawn, and looked after them, smiling. He 
waved his hand when he saw Margie turn. 

“He looks pleasant,” she said. 

“That’s what he is,” said Walter. 

Margie made the borrowing of a book from 
Clara the excuse for her call, and they talked 
long of school affairs. Clara had heard of the 
Boadiceans, and wanted to know about them. 

“I can’t tell about them,” said Margie. “It’s 
a secret society, you know, but the general idea 
of it is to keep the boys from running things so 
much.” 

“I don’t think they ought to run everything, 
do you ?” said Clara. 

“No, I don’t. We’re going to show them a 
thing or two. We want all you Third girls and 
the Fourth girls to stick by us.” 

“I’ll vote for anything you say,” said 
Clara. 

“That’s what I want. You get all the girls 


THE DAY OF THE POT 283 

you know to do it, too, and we’ll show the boys 
who’s running things.” 

“I’ll do my best,” said Clara. 

Margie’s expulsion from the society made 
little difference in the manner of the girls when 
she came to school next day. Marcia was 
pleased. Margie was now powerless. There 
was nothing she could do now to thwart any- 
one’s plans. Glenda thought Margie pig- 
headed. 

“I don’t see any sense in cutting off your nose 
to spite your face,” she said. 

“Marcia made me mad,” said Margie. “I 
said more than I meant to say.” 

Expulsion did not mean ostracism. Marcia 
was, if anything, more cordial than usual. Mar- 
gie was no longer a rival to fear. 

Twenty Boadiceans called for a meeting of 
the General Society for that day at two, and 
were prepared to fight to the last ditch. The 
meeting was larger than any before in the his- 
tory of the school. The boys scented something 
unusual in the air, and Walter imparted to- them 
the Boadiceans’ scheme. He did not, however, 
say that Margie had told him. He merely said 
he was willing to bet he knew what the girls 
were up to. 

He and Tom and Sam and Harry Parker dis- 
cussed the matter in the cloak-room. Tom was 
considered the most deeply learned boy in school. 


284 


HEART OF A GIRL 


He read Schopenhauer, and had an air of 
slightly bored toleration for the follies of the 
world. 

“It’s sickening,” he said, “to see girls forget 
their proper sphere like this.” 

“They want the earth, confound ’em,” said 
Sam. Sam was the oldest boy in school, a hard 
hitter, and already a man of affairs. He had 
charge of the circulation of an afternoon paper 
in one quarter of the city, and earned most of his 
living thereby. 

“I don’t see what we can do to head them off,” 
said Walter. 

“Louis ought to refuse to recognize any of 
them,” said Sam. “That’s the way they do in 
Congress. If he’d do that, they couldn’t get 
their motion to upset the election before the 
house.” 

Tom looked disgusted. 

“You make me tired,” he said. “You know 
what Louis is. All the girls have to do is to say 
‘shoo’ to him, and he runs.” 

“If they do elect a girl in his place,” said 
Harry Parker, “we’ll have fun with her. Girls 
always get rattled.” 

Harry was considered an expert on the sub- 
ject of girls. He was the beau of the school, 
and president of the class. 

“But we don’t want ’em to put Will out,” said 
Walter. “You know ” 


THE DAY OF THE POT 285 

“Mum !” said all the boys in assent. 

Will himself came in then. Some inkling of 
the matter had reached him. 

“I wish you fellows wouldn’t bother about 
me,” he said. “I’d rather not have a fight 
about it.” 

“Get out,” said Walter. “We’re not going to 
make the fight on your account. It’s the prin- 
ciple of the thing.” 

There was a long and perturbed silence, and 
much walking about in dignified meditation. 

“Darn ’em,” said Sam. 

“Co-education is a fool idea,” said Tom. 
“Girls haven’t any business in a high school.” 

“But what are we going to do ?” asked Harry. 

“We can’t do a dog-goned thing,” said 
Walter, hopelessly. “We’ve just got to get 
down and let them walk on us.” 

“We won’t,” said Sam. “We’ll give them the 
fight of their lives, and don’t you forget it.” 

“Oh, rot I” said Tom. “The whole thing is 
disgusting. We are overwhelmed by numbers — 
gnats, gad-flies, crowing hens.” 

“Well,” said Sam, “we won’t let ’em talk any 
more than we can help.” 

And with this small grain of comfort, they 
marched boldly to the meeting, ready to lead 
their forlorn hope. 

The boys sat on the left side of the hall. They 
looked determined, but the girls outnumbered 


286 HEART OF A GIRL 

them overwhelmingly. The meeting opened in 
tense calm. 

“If there are no objections, the reading of the 
minutes of the last meeting will be omitted,” 
said the chair. 

Marcia opened the battle. 

“I object,” said Marcia. “I call for the read- 
ing of the minutes.” 

The minutes were read. 

Margie came in and sat down beside Clara 
Holcomb and the Thirds. 

“If there are no objections, the minutes will 
stand approved as read,” said the chair. 

“I object,” said Marcia, again. “The min- 
utes show that a quorum was not present at the 
last meeting. All business transacted was, there- 
fore, invalid, and cannot stand as the decision of 
this society. I move that the minutes be re- 
jected.” 

“I second the motion,” said a Boadicean. 

“I object, Mr. President,” cried Sam. “It is 
too late to raise the point of no quorum now. 
We have elected officers — and ” 

“Question! Question!” shouted the Boadi- 
ceans. 

“I move that the motion to reject the minutes 
be laid on the table !” cried Tom. Sam seconded 
the motion. 

“Question! Question!” shouted the whole 
society. 


THE DAY OF THE POT 287 

ThePresidentpounded the desk with his gavel. 

“The question before the house is on the mo- 
tion to table. All in favor of this motion say 
‘Aye.’ ” 

“Aye,”^ yelled the boys. 

“Contrary, ‘No.’ ” 

“No !” shouted the girls. 

“Division ! Division I” cried the girls. 

The ayes and noes stood up and were counted. 

The motion was lost. 

“Question ! Question !” chorused the Boadi- 
ceans again. Marcia’s motion wasputandcarried. 

“I will call Walter Van Gelder to the chair,” 
said Louis Horton, “since the society has now 
no president.” 

Will Holmes, too, left his place, and Walter 
asked a Junior boy to act as temporary secretary. 

Marcia was on her feet again. 

“Mr. Chairman,” she said, “I move that the 
secretary be instructed to cast the vote of this 
society for Louis Horton as president.” 

This was a surprise to the boys, who had not 
expected such generosity from the conquerors. 
They joined in lustily and Louis Horton resumed 
the chair, smiling. 

“The next business will be the election of 
secretary,” said the President. “Does the chair 
hear any nominations?” 

“Mr. President,” said Walter, “I nominate 
Willard Holmes.” Tom Newman seconded 


288 


HEART OF A GIRL 


the motion. It was half-heartedly done, for they 
had no hope of winning if the girls chose to op- 
pose, but Will was a favorite, and the boys knew 
that he would feel his removal keenly. 

Glenda nominated Mabel. Florence Hawley 
seconded the nomination. With victory so en- 
tirely a matter of numbers, it was not worth 
while to make speeches. 

‘‘Are there any more nominations?” asked 
the chair. Margie stood up. 

“Mr. President,” she said, “in choosing a sec- 
retary, I think we should select very carefully. 
We want our minutes to be kept in such a way 
that we shall be proud to leave them as a record 
to future members. Let us choose some one of 
literary ability and experience. I nominate 
Florence Hawley.” 

“I second the nomination,” said Clara, 
timidly. 

Sam saw the meaning of it before Marcia did. 
He sprang to his feet. 

“I move that nominations be now closed,” he 
said, “and that we proceed at once to vote.” 

Walter seconded. 

“Veil I” said Sam to the boys. 

Marcia was on her feet, trying to move a with- 
drawal of her nomination of Mabel. She could 
not be heard above the yells of “Question ! Ques- 
tion!” from the boys. Louis Horton looked be- 
wildered. Sam’s threatening finger was shaking 


THE DAY OF THE POT 289 

at him. The boys stood up and went on yelling 
“Question!” The gavel pounded frantically. 

“It is moved and seconded that we vote,” 
piped Louis, in a shrill falsetto. In spite of the 
Boadiceans, the ayes had it. The other girls did 
not understand at all what the fuss was about, 
anyway. The uproar confused them. 

The Boadiceans had provided all the girls 
with slips of paper. Louis appointed Harry and 
Sam to collect and count the votes. Marcia hur- 
ried from row to row in an attempt to rally her 
forces. Sam and Harry hurried to collect 
Senior votes first. Marcia wasted time with the 
Third girls, who voted solidly after Clara’s lead. 
Florence Hawley was the most popular girl in 
school. 

Margie sat back and waited. She had divided 
the girls among themselves. They split evenly, 
and Willard Holmes was elected. 

It mattered nothing that they rallied and 
made Glenda treasurer. Margie herself voted 
for her. All she cared about was showing 
Marcia that she was still to be reckoned with. 

“Tally one for me,” she said to herself. 

As they came out of the meeting Marcia 
turned to her with a withering glance. 

“That’s your idea of honor, is it?” she said. 
“That’s how you keep your oath.” 

“The pot,” said Margie, “is not the only bru- 
nette in the kitchen.” 


CHAPTER XXI. 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS. 

It was fortunate for Margie that two opin- 
ions prevailed concerning her action. Glenda’s 
firm conviction was that Margie had meant well. 

“She did her best to have a girl elected, 
didn’t she?” Glenda insisted. “And we hadn’t 
told her who we wanted for secretary.” 

“She’s not a fool,” said Marcia. “She knew 
exactly what would happen. She meant to split 
the vote.” 

“I can’t see that at all,” Glenda replied. 
“Florence would have made a good deal better 
secretary than Mabel. I voted for her.” 

“Good gracious!” said Marcia. “Why, you 
swore to follow the orders of the Council.” 

“Yes, but that was before Florence was nom- 
inated. I voted for a girl.” 

“You violated your oath.” 

“I didn’t do any such thing. Margaret didn’t, 
either. She was doing the best she could. It’s 
funny if voting for Florence was violating our 
oaths, so many of us did it. I think Margaret 
stood by us.” 


290 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


291 


Marcia could not express her disgust. 

“I’ll bet anything she told the boys what we 
were going to do,” said Marcia. 

“I’ll bet she didn’t. I’m going to ask her.” 

Margie’s only answer to the question was: 

“What do you take me for? Of course I 
didn’t tell the boys.” 

This was technically true, for she had told 
Walter, and Walter had told the rest. 

Glenda remained convinced. The other girls 
were divided in their opinion, but as Margie 
went on her way undisturbed, and made no ad- 
vances to either party, what they thought was of 
no importance. Margie herself gloried in the 
thing, and was at the same time conscious that 
she had been a traitor. 

“I never pretended to be perfect,” she said to 
herself. “And it was a mean way to treat Will 
Holmes.” 

Marcia was large-minded enough to respect 
her. The trick was precisely what she would 
have played in Margie’s place. Like Mar- 
gie, Marcia liked a foe who would hit back, and 
hit hard. And it was a matter of pride with her 
that a girl had done what the boys hadn’t 
thought of doing. By the end of a week they 
were on stu dying-together terms again. 

They were all in the same drawing class. 
Margie drew well, but not accurately. Her 
Junior sketch of a tall, black bottle and an 


292 


HEART OF A GIRL 


earthenware jar hung on the wall of the studio 
beside Marcia’s five designs for linoleum and 
dress goods. It was in charcoal, and tex- 
tures and high lights were good. It had, 
besides, an air of what the girls called “tart- 
ness.” Margie could draw flowers and land- 
scapes, but in the Senior year one worked from 
casts. Her first task that autumn was to draw 
in crayon a bi-laterally symmetrical cast of a 
conventionalized acanthus leaf. Glenda, who 
detested drawing, worked at the same thing, and 
neither of them made any headway. Margie 
could not draw two things alike. Glenda took 
surreptitious measurements with a slip of paper, 
but Margie sat In full view of the teacher. The 
bi-laterally symmetrical acanthus filled her with 
loathing. 

“It isn’t natural for anything to be alike on 
both sides,” she said to Glenda. “No two things 
in the world are exactly alike.” 

“Aren’t people’s faces the same on both 
sides?” Glenda asked. 

“No,” said Margie. “Just look at a full-face 
photograph, half at a time, and you’ll see.” 

Glenda tried it on a picture of Margie she 
had In her desk. 

“You’re two-faced,” she said. “One corner 
of your mouth is grinning and the other is 
mournful.” 

“Everybody’s face is that way,” said Margie. 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


293 

“I just know these casts are made half at a time 
and stuck together.” 

“I don’t see any sense in our trying to do what 
nature can’t do,” said Glenda. “Let’s get ex- 
cused and join the Life Class.” 

An inability to draw a bi-laterally symmetrical 
design, however, did not commend itself to the 
drawing teacher as a reason for promoting them 
to the Life Class, and she refused to argue the 
matter with Glenda. The acanthus ended Mar- 
gie’s career as an artist. Seven weeks of it 
crushed her ambition to become an illustrator 
of the stories she meant to write. She dropped 
drawing and substituted zoology, where one 
had merely to draw insects and the lower orders 
of bi-laterally asymmetrical things. 

Marcia was in the Life Class, and knew a 
good deal about pictures. There was an exhibi- 
tion of Verestchagin’s pictures in St. Anthony 
that fall, and Marcia suggested making up a 
party to go over to see them. The matter came 
up about the study table in the library one Mon- 
day afternoon after school. 

“Do you want to go?” Walter asked Margie. 

“I think it would be splendid,” she said. 

“All right, then,” said Walter. “I’ll drive 
and we’ll all go.” 

“All” meant the group about the table, 
Margie and Glenda and Marcia and Harry 
Parker. 


294 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“We’ll have to go some day this week,” said 
Marcia. “The exhibition closes Friday.” 

“Oh, we can get Miss Marshall to excuse us,” 
said Walter. “I’ll ask her and we can go Thurs- 
day.” 

Miss Marshall granted the leave of absence 
when Walter mentioned a party. When she 
learned the size of the party she said something 
about it being selfish to make the party so small. 

“That’s all that can go in my rig,” Walter 
explained. 

“Why not let some of the others chip in and 
hire a ’bus?” said Miss Marshall. 

Walter went to Margie with this suggestion, 
and Margie and Glenda and Marcia objected. 

“We don’t want a crowd,” said Glenda. 

Miss Marshall took occasion in the History 
Class to mention selfishness as a thing to be 
avoided. Wednesday the class in Composition 
recited to her. Marcia handed in a brief essay 
on Ruskin. Glenda had one on Chivalry. Mar- 
gie’s was on Selfishness. 

“Selfishness,” said she, “is the only motive 
that ever actuates anybody. Everybody wants 
to be happy. This is a selfish desire. Charitable 
people take a delight in giving to the poor. This 
is selfishness in them, because they do it in order 
to be happy. Selfishness is conscience. We can- 
not be happy if we do wrong, so we selfishly 
resolve to be good. Generosity is one form of 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


295 


selfishness, and stinginess is another. A man 
gives up his life for a friend and takes a selfish 
pleasure in it. Religion is another form of 
selfishness. People are religious because they 
want to save their souls. We never hear of any 
one selling his soul to make life pleasant for 
others. Honor Is selfishness. Some kinds of 
selfishness are pleasanter to live with than others^ 
but there Is no such thing as unselfishness.” 

Miss Marshall’s comment on this was that 
the style of It was bad, and it violated .several 
rules of rhetoric. 

The expedition for St. Anthony, however, set 
off Thursday morning from the side entrance 
nearest the Senior room, for her benefit. Instead 
of from the front entrance, where there was a 
horse block. 

Walter had a splendid team, and a two-seated 
barouche. He drove, with Margie beside him, 
and Harry sat between Marcia and Glenda on 
the back seat. It was a cold day, but bright, and 
Walter had fur robes. The girls had brought 
lunch, but Walter stopped at a confectioner’s to 
buy a large box of bon-bons. Harry wanted to 
pay for it, but Walter insisted that this was his 
party. Harry bought a horn, and, after a few 
frantic leaps, the horses ceased to mind It. 

They tooted up the street leading to the upper 
town, drove along the avenue at the edge of the 
bluff, till the houses grew fewer and fewer, and 


HEART OF A GIRL 


296 

the pavement ended. The road led straight 
away across the level country, through suburban 
towns and farm land, to the river crossing. It 
was a ten-mile drive. They all talked at once, 
and laughed and sang till their throats felt stiff. 

“Put up the horn, Harry,” Marcia ordered 
as they drew near the bridge beyond which lay 
St. Anthony. 

“Let me wake ’em up just once.” 

He blew a savage blast, that struck the horses 
like a whip. They broke into a gallop, heading 
straight for the bridge approach. Only a hand- 
rail of wood guarded it at the side. Below that, 
it fell away sharply to the rocks at the river’s 
edge. Margie’s first impulse was to cling to 
Walter. 

“Sit still,” was all he said. 

She leaned away from him to give him more 
room, and held on tight. Nobody screamed. 

“Steady, boys, steady now,” Walter said, 
quietly. 

The horses swerved toward the side of the 
road. The carriage tilted. One wheel grazed 
the railing. 

“Steady now, steady,” Walter said. 

Margie felt the real Walter as never before. 
He was strong and he would bring them through 
safe. He leaned forward, and for the first time 
gave a savage wrench at the lines. It jerked the 
horses’ heads back, and they lost their grip on 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


297 

the bits. They stopped running. At the other 
side of the bridge Walter brought them to a 
standstill. Then he sprang down and went to 
their heads. Margie thought they looked 
ashamed. Walter stroked their noses, and they 
seemed to be trying to apologize. Walter him- 
self was not in the slightest degree ruffled. All 
he said was: 

“Darn that horn.” 

And all Harry answered, mopping his fore- 
head, was: 

“Gee whiz I” 

The girls were decidedly shaken. Harry de- 
clared that Marcia and Glenda had hugged him 
till he felt like a jelly, and the girls denied this 
indignantly. They disputed the point all the 
way into the city. Walter suggested going some- 
where for lunch. 

“We’ve just had lunch,” said Glenda. 

“I know,” he said, “but it wasn’t filling. Let’s 
go get some real grub.” 

They drove to a restaurant. The girls chose 
chocolate eclairs and ice-cream. Walter ordered 
for himself and Harry chops and fried potatoes, 
and ate with hearty satisfaction. Afterwards 
they went to a livery stable and put up the horses. 
Then they w^alked over to the Art Gallery. 

The pictures were of battlefields strewn with 
dead and dying, of Sepoys blown from the 
mouths of cannon, and of starved men long dead. 


HEART OF A GIRL 


298 

It was a veritable charnel house, and the girls 
and Harry made merry over this and that. Only 
Marcia attempted to speak as a connoisseur. 
Half-way down the gallery Walter turned back 
suddenly and walked quickly out. 

“What’s the matter with old Walt?” asked 
Harry. 

“I thought he looked sick,” said Margie. “I’ll 
go and see.” 

She found Walter in the anteroom. He was 
sitting in a corner and his face was white. 

“What is the matter?” she asked, going over 
to him. 

He reached out and caught her hand. She 
could feel that his hand was cold and it trembled. 

“Was it the horses?” she asked. 

He looked up at her with horror in his eyes. 

“Those awful pictures!” he said. “It 
made me faint to look at them. Let’s stay out 
here.” 

He held her hand for a few moments. Then 
he laughed feebly. 

“I’m an awful fool about things,” he said. 
“Don’t tell Harry.” 

“Of course not,” said Margie. She could not 
understand feeling faint over pictures. They 
were only canvas and paint. 

Walter’s color had come back when the rest 
of the party joined them. 

Harry began to talk of what they had seen. 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


299 


“Don’t let us talk about them,” said Margie. 
“They were so ghastly.” 

“Shall we start home now?” asked Glenda. 

“No,” said Harry. “Let’s go shopping.” 

The first place they went into was a drug 
store. Harry walked up to the clerk and asked 
if he had any fresh eggs in stock. 

“No,” said the clerk in surprise. “This is a 
drug store.” 

“Oh,” said Harry, politely, “I thought eggs 
were a drug on the market at present. Excuse 
me. I’ll call again.” 

This sent the others out of the place in a gale 
of laughter. 

“I like to shop,” said Harry. The next place 
was a bookstore. Harry asked for the first vol- 
ume of the Cumaean Sibyl. The clerk consulted 
the head salesman, and reported that the book 
was not in stock, but that if the gentleman would 
give him the publisher’s name it would be sent 
for. 

“It is published by McGuffey,” Harry told 
him. “I’ll call again.” 

They suppressed their giggles till they were 
in the street again, and Harry set out to look for 
a log-chain at a jeweler’s. Finding they had no 
such thing, he said souvenir spoons would do as 
well. The girls protested against accepting the 
gifts. 

“If you don’t, I’ll lie down on the floor and 


300 HEART OF A GIRL 

holler and cry,” said Harry. “I can’t bear to 
be crossed.” 

So, amid great glee, the spoons were bought 
and presented. The girls then insisted on buy- 
ing flowers for the boys. This took another 
hour, and was great fun. Margie thought it 
was time to go home then. 

“We’d better wait here and have dinner,” said 
Walter, “and go home by moonlight. If we 
start now, we’d get home too late for dinner.” 

The girls demurred at this. What would 
their mothers think if they were not home before 
dark? 

“I can fix that,” said Walter. “I’ll telegraph 
to them.” 

The telegrams were all alike. 

“Your daughter will be home to-night. I will 
take care of her. Don’t worry. We are having 
a great time.” 

Marcia and Margie were a little fearful as to 
the propriety of driving home after dark, but 
Glenda wanted to stay. 

“Walter can take care of us,” she said. “My 
mother won’t worry. I want to see what kind 
of chicken salad they have at the Hennepin.” 

The Hennepin was the largest hotel in St. 
Anthony. It seemed to Margie a frightful ex- 
travagance on Walter’s part to take them there, 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


301 

and she urged him just to buy some things they 
could eat on the road home. 

“I don’t think you ought to spend so much,” 
she said. 

“Why not?” asked Walter. “We ought to 
have a hot dinner, oughtn’t we?” 

“But the Hennepin is so expensive,” she 
urged. 

“Father gave me thirty dollars to blow in on 
this, and I’m going to blow it all,” said Walter. 

So they dined royally, and Harry set them to 
laughing so hard that they were afraid people 
would look at them, by calling for a cup with 
the handle on the left side, and puzzling the 
waiter. 

They drove home under the full moon, and 
sang till the beauty of the night silenced them. 
Harry went to sleep and Marcia and Glenda 
prodded him to keep him awake. Margie was 
sleepy, too, and Walter nodded. 

“Poke me if I start to fall out,” he said. 

The horses knew the way. 

Margie’s house was the nearest. Walter 
helped her out of the carriage, and it was good 
to see the light stream out when the hall door 
opened. It was good, too, to hear the boys and 
girls shouting “Good-night” till the horses car- 
ried them out of hearing. It was all such a good 
time to think about before one dropped off to 


302 


HEART OF A GIRL 


On Friday Miss Marshall called Marcia and 
Glenda to her separately. She asked Margie to 
wait and speak to her after school. 

“I am sorry,” she said, “to be obliged to speak 
of such a thing, but it cannot be allowed to pass 
unnoticed.” 

Margie wondered blankly. 

“I mean your trip to St. Anthony,” Miss 
Marshall went on. “I think you are the one 
most to blame.” 

“For what?” asked Margie in astonishment. 

“For keeping the girls over there, dining at a 
hotel, and coming home late at night with the 
boys.” 

Margie stood speechless. 

“You were the ringleader. Walter wouldn’t 
have stayed if you hadn’t wanted to.” 

“Miss Marshall,” said Margie, “I don’t mean 
to be impertinent, but I do think what I do cut 
of school is my mother’s affair I” 

“You went during school hours.” 

“But staying wasn’t in school hours. I don’t 
see anything wrong in what we did.” 

“I do,” said Miss Marshall. “The whole 
thing is regrettable, but I should not have 
brought it up if that were all.” 

“What else is there?” asked Margie, angrily. 

“Your general attitude. You have great in- 
fluence over Walter, and -you do not use it in the 
right way. You oppose me in any w^ you can,” 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


303 


“I don’t know what you mean,” said Margie. 

“You do know. I mean Glenda, for one 
thing. I mean other things. You are an unruly 
spirit, Margaret.” 

Margie did not answer. 

“I have thought sometimes,” Miss Marshall 
went on, “that something must have happened to 
you to make you bitter. You are trying always 
to hit back at something. You meant that essay 
on Selfishness as a slap at me.” 

“I know I did,” said Margie. “I was out of 
temper. But about staying over in St. Anthony, 
I really wasn’t any more to blame than anybody 
else. We had no idea of anything but having a 
good time. And now” — Margie’s voice broke 
in spite of herself — “now it isn’t a good 
time, and I haven’t had any too many to re- 
member.” 

Miss Marshall did not speak for some time. 

“Perhaps I was wrong,” she said at length. 
“I don’t want to hurt you. I wanted merely to 
come to an understanding with you.” 

“Things were all right till that time about 
Clara Holcomb,” said Margie*. 

“I admit I was wrong about that. Marcia 
gave me a wrong impression — not intentionally, 
I think, but she gave it nevertheless. It isn’t so 
much what you do, Margaret, as it is the things 
you make me feel. Don’t you think we can 
understand each other better?” 


304 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“I don’t understand anybody,” said Margie. 
“I never did.” 

“Did you ever really try?” 

“I think I have. I think I’ve wanted to,” 
said Margie, slowly. 

“I’d like you to feel friendly toward me,” 
said Miss Marshall. “I wish I could explain 
how it looks to me, but I find I can’t.” 

“You muddle me all up talking that way,” 
said Margie, desperately. 

“Were you ever very fond of anybody?” 

Margie did not reply immediately. 

“Yes, I was. That’s why.” 

“It was why with me once, too,” said Miss 
Marshall. “It’s a common why.” 

There was another pause. 

“Come, now, Margaret,” said Miss Marshall, 
“we’ve had it out. Let’s start in and do dif- 
ferently. Don’t hold out against me any more. 
I declare, sometimes, when I run up against an 
opinion of yours in the history class, I get mad 
enough to slap you.” 

They both laughed. 

“You see, I have to teach generally accepted 
opinions in everything. I cannot get the class 
through at all if you and Glenda insist on having 
opinions of your own. You can have them, but 
do keep them to yourselves. You muddle the 
whole class.” 

“I didn’t know it made much difference,” said 


PRINCE FORTUNATUS 


305 


Margie. “I just like to hear Glenda. But, Miss 
Marshall, you really don’t think it was wrong 
of us to stay last night, do you? We didn’t do 
it at all to be mean.” 

^‘Not like starting off from the side door?” 

“That was mean, but it was a kid trick. We 
didn’t think about you again the whole time we 
were gone.” 

Miss Marshall smiled. 

“Oh, well,” she said, “just let it go on being 
a good time to remember, then. I wish I hadn’t 
spoken of it. But I think we do understand 
each other now.” 


CHAPTER XXIL 


THE REAL MARCIA. 

In November the General Debating Society 
sent a challenge to the St. Anthony High School 
to join in debate. The question, and the time 
and place of debate, to be settled by the chal- 
lenged. There was no question under the sun 
that Centropolis felt unable to win on. St. An- 
thony accepted. The debate was to be in St. 
Anthony’s Assembly Hall, on the last Friday 
before school closed for the Christmas holidays, 
and the question: “Resolved, That the Govern- 
ment should own railway and telegraph sys- 
tems.” Lots were drawn and the affirmative fell 
to Centropolis. Great was the excitement in 
Centropolis. 

“We’ll lick them out of their boots again, as 
we did last year,” said Sam Willis. 

Sam was, unquestionably, the best debater in 
school, and he knew it. Tom Newhouse was a 
more subtle reasoner, and Harry had more 
humor, but Sam struck out harder from the 
shoulder. He had a big voice, too, and Tom’s 
was languid. Sam took it for granted that he 
306 


THE REAL MARCIA 


307 


would lead in the debate. He took it for 
granted, too, that Margie would be his second. 
She had never been on the losing side in a debate, 
and she had been the only girl to oppose St. An- 
thony the year before. It was her right to be 
his second. They discussed the matter together 
before the Committee on Debaters brought in 
their report. 

“It seems an awfully hard subject to debate 
on,” Margie said. 

“We’ll have to read up a lot and study 
things,” said Sam. 

“What ought we to read?” she asked. 

“There ought to be some Congressional re- 
ports on interstate commerce that would help,” 
said Sam. “Do you think we could write to 
the Congressman of this district?” 

“I know we could,” said Margie. “And my 
mother’s uncle is in the Senate. I could write to 
him. He’d send us any reports there are, I 
think.” 

“Bully!” said Sam. “I can get at state re- 
ports. We’ll have a lot of work to do, but we’ll 
knock St. Anthony over the fence and out.” 

Her letter reached the white-haired old Sen- 
ator in Washington early in December. It came 
up Capitol Hill in a covere^l wagon marked 
“Senate Mail.” It was handled by the Senate 
Postmaster and tied up with official pink tape 
with the rest of Senator Gordon’s mail. A mes- 


HEART OF A GIRL 


308 

senger carried it to the Senator’s secretary, in 
the room of the Committee on Civil Service and 
Retrenchment. The committee was in session, 
but personal letters were always handed to the 
Senator as soon as they came. Margie had 
marked hers “Important.” 

“Excuse me a moment, gentlemen,” said the 
chairman, “a matter of important business.” 

“Dear Uncle John,” Margie wrote. “Has the 
Government ever published any reports that 
would help us in a debate on Railways? I 
thought, perhaps, somebody had made some 
speech or introduced some bill that we might use. 
I shall be very much obliged if you will let me 
know as soon as you can. We have the affirma- 
tive, and we expect to win.” 

The Senator read it to the committee. 

“I must consult with the Chairman of the 
Committee on Interstate Commerce imme- 
diately,” he said. “Gentlemen, let us adjourn.” 

And the Chairman of the Committee on 
Pacific Railways was consulted. The Chairman 
on Post-Office and Post Roads offered his as- 
sistance; the Chairman of the Committee on For- 
eign Affairs offered his, too. The Chairman of 
the Committee on Revision of Laws of the 
United States took an interest in the matter; so 
did the Chairman of the Committee on Finance, 


THE REAL MARCIA 


309 

and the Chairman of the Committee on Ways 
and Means, and many another chairman. It was 
a relief to them all to let somebody else shoulder 
responsibilities for a while. The General De- 
bating Society would point out exactly what the 
Government ought to do. 

And the Government sent the documents to 
Margie free of post-office charges. They were 
all marked “Official Business.” 

Louis Horton appointed Marcia chairman of 
the Committee on Debaters. She came to Mar- 
gie to talk over the different girls who could 
debate. 

“There’s Glenda,” she said. 

“Yes, and Ruth Webster,” said Margie. 
“She debated second to me last month in the 
Utile Duke, and she went straight to the point.” 

“I know,” said Marcia. “We’ll have five in 
the after-debate, and two leaders. We want to 
choose carefully.” 

“Miss Marshall ought to be able to tell who’s 
good at writing,” said Margie. 

“I’ll consult with her,” Marcia replied. 

It was three days later that the names of de- 
baters were announced to the society at a meet- 
ing after school. Two of these days Margie had 
been absent, but on the third she was able to at- 
tend the meeting. She went in with Glenda, and 
sat with the rest of the girls. The first business 
of the meeting was the committee’s report. 


310 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Mr. President,” said Marcia, “this com- 
mittee has considered the matter of selection of 
debaters carefully, and has made the choice. For 
leader we have selected Sam Willis.” 

There was unanimous cheering at that. 

“And for second” — Margie’s heart beat fast 
— “Ruth Webster.” 

There was an instant of utter silence, and then 
moderate applause. 

Walter sprang to his feet. 

“Mr. President,” he said, “I don’t think we 
ought to accept any such report. I think the 
best debater in school has been left out.” 

“I object to the report, Mr. President,” said 
Harry. “I think the committee should consider 
the matter again.” 

“Mr. President,” said Marcia, “I wish to say 
that we have left it to the two leaders to choose 
five speakers for the after-debate. The after- 
debate is important, but we have thought best to 
choose as leaders debaters who — who rely on 
logical argument rather than on an appeal 
to ” 

Margie rose. 

“Mr. President,” she said, and her voice 
sounded strange to her, “I move that the report 
of the committee be accepted without debate.” 

“I second the motion,” said a Senior girl. 

Margie was stunned. She had never for a 
moment doubted that she would be Sam’s second. 


THE REAL MARCIA 


311 

For a year she had looked forward to it. Noth- 
ing had ever happened to shake her belief. It 
was her right. She had never lost a debate. She 
felt that people were looking at her, and she 
hung on desperately to her self-control. The 
thunderbolt had fallen from a clear sky. To 
get away and hide was now her one thought. 

Glenda kept saying that the committee had 
shown no sense. Clara Holcomb was waiting to 
express her sympathy. Sam followed her out of 
the hall when the meeting was adjourned, after 
half an hour of torture to her. 

“It’s a burning shame,” he said. “I wanted 
you to be my second. You’ll be leader in the 
after-debate, anyway. I promise you that.” 

Margie dared not speak. She went on down 
the stairs, and to the cloak-room for her cloak 
and hat. Girls spoke to her, she remembered 
afterward, and she did not know what answers 
she made. 

“I have the horse here,” said Walter. “Don’t 
you want to go downtown and get some candy?” 

Margie’s lip quivered. 

“Please take me straight home,” she said. 

Walter did not speak again till they reached 
her house. Then, as he held out his hand to help 
her down from the cart, he said : 

“Don’t mind it, honey.” 

Margie remembered that mother and Betty 
had gone to Greenville to spend the day and 


312 


HEART OF A GIRL 


night. The Swedish maid-of-all-work opened 
the door for her. 

“Ae tank you bane seek,” she said. 

“I am,” said Margie. “Don’t call me for 
dinner.” 

She ran up to her room and locked the door. 
Then she flung herself on the floor and gave 
way. There was no one to hear or see. She 
struck the floor with her clenched hands. 

“I can’t bear it!” she sobbed. “I can’t bear 
it I I’ve looked forward to It a whole year 1” 

Living had been so comfortable. She had 
been going on so steadily, making herself some- 
body in the school. Everything had been lead- 
ing up to this debate. For a whole year she had 
looked forward to it. Her overthrow was com- 
plete. ^ 

“I can’t bear It 1” she cried. “It doesn’t leave 
me anything. It’s always been like this — Fred 
and Julia — I’ve never had what I wanted. 
They’ve hit me when I couldn’t hit back. I can’t 
bear It. They saw — I showed It. Why did you 
let me look forward to It for a whole year, God? 
You knew I wasn’t In things out of school. I 
don’t belong anywhere. Why couldn’t you let 
me have this, God? I’ve worked hard for It. 
What did I ever do to you?” 

One by one the lashes of It stung her. Every- 
body must have known she expected to be chosen. 
Sam had talked of It. 


THE REAL MARCIA 


313 


“And it wasn’t swelled head,” she said. “I 
can debate. I always win. It can’t be just luck. 
The only time Ruth Webster ever debated was 
second to me. I can’t go on now. I can’t speak in 
the after-debate. I did that a whole year ago.” 

All her life rose before her, a failure. She 
thought of Julia and of Fred. Neither of them 
had wanted her. And she had not even made 
herself somebody. 

“I’m not eighteen yet, and I’ve got to live to 
be old. I can’t go on. I can’t bear it.” 

The afternoon wore away. She got up from 
the floor after she had exhausted herself, and 
took the fan Fred had written his name on from 
the doll’s trunk. She held it as she sat by the 
window looking out at the dusk. She had a 
numb feeling of being alone in the world. The 
things she had wanted had always gone away 
into the west and left her in the dark. She had 
never found the way to be near anybody. She 
sat there looking out for a long, long time. 

The doorbell below rang. She thought it 
might be Walter, and she did not want to see 
him. She opened her door to listen, and heard 
Marcia asking for her. 

“She has come to see how I take it,” she 
thought. “I won’t go down. I can’t. I wish 
I could kill her. She did it all.” 

The Swedish maid came up to tell her Marcia 
had asked for her, 


314 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Say I’ll be down presently,” Margie said. 

“I will,” she thought. “I will. I’ll find a 
way to hit back. She won’t know I’ve been 
crying if the light isn’t very bright.” 

She washed her face and brushed her hair, 
and went down, head high. 

She thought Marcia looked uncomfortable as 
they shook hands. 

“Aren’t you feeling well?” Marcia asked. 

“My head aches a little,” said Margie. 

There was an awkward pause. 

“That isn’t the truth,” she said, suddenly. 
“I’ve been crying because you left me out of ihe 
debate.” 

“I didn’t know you’d care so much,” said 
Marcia. 

“You saw I cared when T heard that report. 
I showed it then,” said Margie. 

“You didn’t show it,” said Marcia. “I was 
surprised that you didn’t seem to care a bit. I 
thought, perhaps, you looked at it as Miss 
Marshall did.” 

“Oh, so Miss Marshall ” 

“I’ll tell you the whole truth,” said Marcia. 
“I wanted to be leader in the debate more than 
I ever wanted anything else, but I was chairman 
of the committee, and nobody in it ever men- 
tioned me. I made up my mind if I couldn’t 
have the honor, I’d keep you from getting it. 
You’ve had more than your share. You’ve 


THE REAL MARCIA 


315 


beaten me twice in debate, and you’ve got better 
marks than I did in Latin, and they printed your 
serial in the W orld and rejected mine.” 

“I never knew that,” said Margie. 

“Well, it’s true. So when we talked with 
Miss Marshall about what girl to choose, she 
told us to let Ruth Webster be leader, and I 
agreed with her.” 

“What did she say against me?” 

“It wasn’t exactly against you,” said Marcia. 
“She said, to begin with, that the subject wasn’t 
one that you could handle well. You know you 
don’t like political economy.” 

“I always get sleepy in class,” Margie ad- 
mitted. 

“She said you wouldn’t present plain facts so 
convincingly as Ruth would. Ruth would bone 
up on it more thoroughly than you would.” 

“I think I could have debated it as well as 
Ruth.” 

“Ruth isn’t to debate,” said Marcia. “She is 
merely to present points. Miss Marshall said 
you’d be worth more to us as an after-debate 
speaker than as a leader. Wait, now, and I’ll 
tell you why. You think quick, and you speak 
extempore well. You can always answer back. 
You won from me once because you made me so 
mad I forgot what I intended to say. Miss 
Marshall said you’d be the very person for 
leader if the audience was to judge. You can 


HEART OF A GIRL 


316 

convince a crowd, but Miss Marshall says you 
don’t do it with arguments.” 

“Anything else Miss Marshall had the kind- 
ness to say?” Margie asked, half-sneeringly. 

“No, only she had no idea you would rather 
be leader than leader in the after-debate. That’s 
the truth. She thought you’d feel freer as it is. 
She said you wouldn’t enjoy getting up a long, 
difficult paper on the subject, because it wasn’t a 
thing you cared about.” 

“I didn^'t care what the subject was. I wanted 
to debate.” 

“I know you did,” Marcia replied. “I agreed 
with Miss Marshall because — because I wanted 
to. The rest of the committee wanted you till 
she explained just what you are as a debater. 
There’s truth in what she said.” 

Margie did not speak. She knew there was 
truth in it. The question of railways and tele- 
graphs had not appealed to her. It seemed 
dry. 

“I had a cry, too, Margaret,” said Marcia. 
“I wanted to be leader — ^wanted awfully.” 

“And you wanted to hit back at me?” 

“Yes; but I didn’t mean to hit so hard, and I 
didn’t expect to feel mean about it. I thought 
you’d just be mad, and go ahead in the after- 
debate.” 

“I couldn’t speak in that now to save my soul,” 
said Margie. “Do you know what I thought 


THE REAL MARCIA 


317 

when you came? I thought you came just to 
see how I took it.” 

“That was why I came,” Marcia said, frankly. 
“If you had pretended you didn’t care, I was 
going to rub it in. I didn’t know — well, you 
made me feel mighty mean by not pretending.” 

“I couldn’t pretend,” said Margie. “I was 
hurt too badly to hide it.” 

“I’d feel lots better if you had said you didn’t 
care.” 

“I don’t care now so much as I did,” said 
Margie. “I reckon I’ll get over it. But how 
can I get out of speaking in that after-debate?” 

“Say you have a sore throat,” said Marcia. 
“Will you help me get up my speech?” 

“If I can, I will, but I wouldn’t help Ruth for 
anything on earth.” 

“I wouldn’t, either,” said Marcia. “Are you 
going to try to get even with me for this ?” 

Margie thought it over. 

“I don’t believe I am. I wouldn’t have let 
you be leader if I’d been on the committee. I 
hate to let anybody get ahead of me.” 

“I do, too,” said Marcia. “I’m not going 
to tattle about this. You rubbed that in to me 
good and hard.” 

“I tattled myself,” Margie admitted. 

“Nobody knows you care a bit,” said Marcia. 
“They won’t find out from me. I do feel awfully 
mean,” 


318 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Oh, let’s not talk of it,” said Margie. “I 
won’t feel bad very long. I never do. Have 
you got your Virgil for tomorrow?” 

“No,” said Marcia. “Let’s study it. We’ve 
got an Eclogue to scan. I missed this morning 
on that. Nec sum adeo informis. Nuper me 
in litore vidi. How was it you scanned it?” 

“You forgot to make ‘nuper’ a spondee, and 
to elide. It goes this way : ‘Nec s’ade’ informis. 
Nuper m’in litore vidi.’ ” 

“And you knew that line Papa Brown asked 
for. The one he said sounds like horses gallop- 
ing. How did you know? You don’t have any 
trouble at all in Latin,” said Marcia. 

“I knew that line because my father told me 
years ago. Quadrupedante putrem sonitu 
quatit angula campiim. It’s such a splendid line. 
I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been told. I 
like poetry.” 

“Tennyson?” asked Marcia, with a smile. 

“No,” said Margie, smiling back. “I think 
that ‘Poet’s Song’ the silliest thing I know.” 

Margie sat by her window after Marcia had 
gone. She felt melancholy, but no longer bitter. 
Somehow the sting of the thing was gone. She 
had made a failure as a debater, but she knew 
why. She put the fan with Fred’s name on it 
under her pillow. The why of that failure she 
did not know. 

It was hard when the reports came from 


THE REAL MARCIA 


319 


Washington. She gave them to Sam, and she 
hoped that Ruth Webster would make a com- 
plete and utter failure. She was glad to give 
what help she could to Marcia, and Marcia 
didn’t tattle. Till the very day before the de- 
bate even, Sam thought Margie was preparing 
for the after-debate. She announced the sore 
throat then, and spoke in a hoarse whisper. 

When they set off for St. Anthony, on the 2 2d 
of December, every one of them decorated with 
school colors, Margie found herself excited. 
She really hoped Centropolis would win. They 
went by rail this time, and they shouted the 
school yell as they marched into the St. An- 
thony Assembly Hall. As to the debate, it 
seemed to her dull and dry. She acknowledged 
to herself that she would not have been content 
to present simple facts as Ruth Webster did. 
She would have wanted to say things she could 
break loose on. It was not interesting to her till 
the after-debate came. Then she saw several 
points she might have made, and whispered them 
to Marcia. It was give and take in the after- 
debate. 

The whole thing bored Walter. 

“You would have livened it up,” he said to 
Margie. 

“Yes, but I wouldn’t have argued it up,” she 
said, and meant what she said. 

The girl leader for St. Anthony had the last 


320 


HEART OF A GIRL 


speech of all, in summing up for the negative. 
She was flushed as she stepped out on the plat- 
form. After a line or two she began to repeat 
words vaguely. 

Walter jumped up and ran down the aisle. 
She toppled over in a faint just as he reached her. 

“I wonder if Walter never fails,” Margie 
thought. “It must be because he never thinks 
about himself.” 

The incident created a stir, and as the girl was 
not able to continue her speech, Centropolis in- 
sisted that St. Anthony choose two other speak- 
ers to sum up. They wanted the fight to be fair. 
They were even magnanimous enough not to 
cheer when the decision of the judges was an- 
nounced. It was in their favor, but they kept 
silent till they reached the street. Then they 
shouted themselves hoarse all the way to the 
train. Margie shouted, too. Her school had 
won. She congratulated Sam and Marcia, but 
she avoided Ruth till they reached Centropolis, 
and then she vented her spite. 

Outside the station the Van Gelder sleigh, 
glittering and fine, with a man in livery and furs 
on the box, was waiting. Margie had already 
asked Walter to drive Marcia home. Now, 
she turned to Ruth. 

“Oh, Walter,” she said, “wouldn’t there be 
room to take Ruth home, too?” 

And then she congratulated Ruth, 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


A SPLENDID WORLD. 

Margie wrote Major Winchester a long let- 
ter about the matter of the debate. 

“I was hit hard,” she said. “And I suppose 
it was good for me. I did have a swelled head. 
I don’t know why I’m not angry with Miss 
Marshall, but I’m not. I reckon she knows me 
better than I know myself. I read something 
in George Eliot the other day about a woman 
who suffered not so much from her own unhap- 
piness as from the thought of it, or something 
like that. Perhaps I’m that way, and don’t feel 
all I think I feel.” 

And she told him of Walter and the Verest- 
chagin pictures. 

“Walter never seems to think about himself. 
I can’t help doing it. I never get myself off 
my mind at all. I never did but once, and that 
was when I took ether. You can’t think with 
other people’s minds nor see with their eyes. 
You’re born alone and live alone and die alone. 
All I have found out yet is that I am on my own 
mind less when I have plenty to do. I believe 
321 


322 


HEART OF A GIRL 


that when this thing hit me, I went down so hard 
I bounced. Anyway, I’m up again. I suppose 
you’ve got to be able to bounce if you want to 
live at all.” 

Major Winchester wrote back: 

“It almost makes me sorry. Just what I’ve 
been telling you all along to do, you have gone 
and done. You have got direction. Now all 
you need is the momentum that practice and 
thinking and waiting and age will give. Clear 
the track, the train is coming. Don’t you wish 
you were a boy, so you could write to travel, and 
travel to write, like Bayard Taylor? ’Tis hope- 
less. I fear me you must fail. Your fate is 
sealed unless you are so wonderful you can de- 
mand whole pay, not half pay. Go on writing. 
Trust yourself; sun and air your vagaries. If 
your head is swelled, swell it till it is colossal. 
Read Emerson. Don’t be afraid. Be something 
big — even being a big fool is better than being 
nothing. What have you to write about? Can 
you take hold of the longest nose in the world 
and pull it out an inch longer (as Dickens did) 
on paper, and thereby make to yourself Fame? 
The most real things in life are our dreams. We 
require so much of friends that none are extant 
to fill the bill. You will always be alone. We 
all are. I like your Walter boy. Leave him as 


A SPLENDID WORLD 


323 


you found him. Make up to him for what some 
other woman will do to him afterward.’* 

It was not long after that that a little note 
came to her from Major Winchester. 

“Go on, my dear,” it said. “Never give in. 
Love, if you can. Hate, too, and be honest. I 
am going to find out things. Maybe I’ll find 
somebody I knew a great many years ago — 
somebody I have thought you were like. It is 
a splendid world, this. I am glad I have known 
it. Good-night, my dear friend.” 

Major Winchester was dead almost before 
the note reached Margie. She kept his letters 
as long as she kept the fan Fred had written his 
name on, and longer. He left to her the collar 
of his dog, and that, too, she kept among her 
souvenirs. It was the last parcel his hands tied 
up. She thought of Major Winchester always 
as having found out things. Like Walter, he 
had never been afraid, she thought. 

Somehow, Major Winchester’s death gave 
her a new outlook. He had said it was a splen- 
did world when he was done with it. It must 
be a splendid world. And it was a world in 
which there was a great deal to do. That was 
what made it splendid. • 

She had another class in Physical Culture in 


324 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Greenville this winter, and enjoyed teaching, 
though she had no illusions on the subject of her 
ability. She could teach calisthenics; nothing 
more. One of her pupils was a tall, awkward 
girl of fifteen, named Mary Blair. Mary went 
through the exercises faithfully, but she still 
carried herself badly, and her head was always 
thrust forward awkwardly. No setting-up drill 
seemed to help her. Margie read all she could 
find in the Public Library on the subject of 
Physical Culture, but nothing proved to be a 
help in Mary’s case. Her chest did not broaden, 
and her shoulder-blades stuck out painfully. 
Telling her to throw her shoulders back merely 
made her thrust her chin out. The other girls 
in the class were healthy, merry girls, who took 
no particular interest in the lessons. They were 
a little afraid of Margie, and kept perfect order 
after she had turned the sharp edge of her 
tongue on them once. Poor, gawky Mary was 
deeply in earnest. 

She came to the station to meet Margie one 
day. Margie had been thinking of herself at 
the awkward age, and Mary reminded her of 
herself at fifteen. 

“You make me think of the way I was at your 
age, Mary,” she said as they walked toward 
the hall where the class met. “I was as tall as I 
am now, and I used to shrink so I wouldn’t look 
so long drawn out.” 


A SPLENDID WORLD 


325 

“I wish I wasn’t so tall,” said Mary. ‘‘It’s 
awful.” 

“Why?” Margie asked. “You ought to be 
glad. It makes you so much nearer the stars.” 

She looked at Mary to see how this impressed 
her. Mary seemed interested. 

“I never thought of that,” she said. 

“Did you ever try feeling you were fastened 
to a star by the centre of your chest when you 
walk?” 

Mary looked at her shyly. 

“We’re kin to the stars, you know,” Margie 
went on. “We really are tied to them that way. 
You want to try to get the top of your head as 
close to them as you can. It makes you walk 
better.” 

“Better than wand drill?” Mary asked. 

“Wand drill doesn’t do anything but give you 
muscle and quickness and wind,” said Margie. 
“What you walk with is the feeling inside you — 
the feeling about stars.” 

Mary was fifteen, and she answered: 

“I See what you mean. Nobody ever talked 
— plain like that to me before.” 

A little later she said : 

“Look at me now, Miss Carlin. Don’t I hold 
myself better now ?” 

“Yes, you do,” said Margie. “Your chest is 
out and your chin is in.” 

“And the top of my head is as near the stars 


HEART OF A GIRL 


326 

as I can get it,” said Mary, delightedly. “Oh, 
it’s easy to do when you don’t have to remember 
about holding your chin in or your shoulders 
back, or anything hard like that. They’ve made 
so much fun of me at home because I stand in 
such a clumsy way. But now I know how to 
stand up. They won’t make fun now. I’ll never 
forget what you said about the stars. You’ve 
shown me the way out.” 

Margie stood stock still for a moment. 

The way out ! Did everybody feel that way ? 

“Do you ever get unhappy, and discouraged, 
and feel that you’re all alone in an ugly, unkind 
world, Mary?” 

“Yes,” said Mary. “I wish I was dead lots 
of times. You never do, do you?” 

“Everybody does,” said Margie. “But it 
isn’t an ugly world, and we’re not alone. It’s a 
splendid world with stars over it.” 

Late that night, on the train, as she went 
back to Centropolis, she talked to Major Win- 
chester. 

“I’m glad you told me,” she said; “it’s a 
splendid world.” 

The conductor spoke to her as the train neared 
Centropolis. He was a pleasant-looking, elderly 
man, and Margie had traveled in his train a 
great many times, but she had never talked with 
him. Her name he knew, of course. It was 
written in her ticket-book. 


A SPLENDID WORLD 327 

“Will somebody meet you, Miss Carlin?” he 
asked. ' 

“My father usually meets me,” she answered. 

“The train is so late. I thought maybe you 
wouldn’t find anyone at the depot. My run ends 
here, and I could see you safely to the street- 
car.” 

Margie was touched. 

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “If father isn’t 
there I’ll come back and tell you. I’m sure he’ll 
be there. It’s ever so kind of you, though.” 

“Not at all,” said the conductor. “My 
daughter goes to your school. She talks about 
you a great deal. She’s a Fourth.” 

“What’s her name?” 

“Elizabeth Morgan.” 

Margie had never heard the name before. 

“She says you showed her how to find things 
in the Encyclopaedia in the library one day when 
she first started to school. She’s never forgotten 
it.” 

Margie could not recall the incident, but she 
took pains to find out, after that, who the girl 
was, and spoke to her when they met in the halls. 
It had never been her habit to speak first to any- 
one before. 

“It does seem pleasanter to speak to every- 
body,” she thought. She noticed that Florence 
Hawley did it. 

There was work at the Centropolis High 


HEART OF A GIRL 


328 

School, but there was play, too. The Juniors 
and Seniors were free to use the Assembly Hall 
for class parties now and then. All that was 
required of them was a small fee for the gas. 
When they wanted to dance they waxed the floor 
with candles, appropriated from the laboratory, 
and took turns at the piano. No class meeting 
for the discussion of a proposed entertainment 
was ever held without a speech from Walter. 
He would always rise seriously and say: “Mr. 
President, I think we ought to have grub.” 

Having grub meant spending money from the 
class treasury, and as the end of the school year 
began to loom up, ’90 grew economical. Com- 
mencement expenses would be heavy. When 
Walter proposed having refreshments at the St. 
Valentine’s Day party, he was voted down. 

It was a splendid party. The boys hired a 
street piano and a man to grind it, as a surprise 
to the girls. The girls had valentines for the 
boys, as their surprise. It was Marcia’s idea. 
She painted little sketches on twenty cards, and 
Margie wrote a verse on each. Some of the 
verses were original, and some quotations, and 
there was a good-natured hit at every one. What 
made them sound so well was the way Glenda 
read them as she delivered them. Glenda was 
Cupid. The girls dressed her in a red-and- 
yellow kimono, left in the property closet behind 
the stage, and put a mortar-board cap on her 


A SPLENDID WORLD 


329 


head. Mabel Rohlfs suggested wings, which 
they hewed out of large pasteboard boxes. They 
were tied to Glenda by coils and coils of clothes- 
line, and a string fastened to the edge of each 
ended in a loop around her thumb. Glenda 
made her entrance with her usual utterly serious 
face, hopping along in imitation of a robin, the 
wings flapping at each hop. Even Miss 
Marshall and Mr. Harmon shrieked with laugh- 
ter at the sight. 

“You ought to be class poet, Margaret,” said 
Marcia, when the last of the valentines had been 
read. 

“Ld rather be prophet if the class will let me,” 
said Margie. “What do you want to be?” 

“I want to be historian. I’m glad we don’t 
want the same thing.” 

“So am I. I hope nobody wants any part that 
anybody else wants.” 

“Except the Commencement prize,” said 
Marcia. 

“We all want that,” Margie replied. “I 
know I do. But it won’t kill me if I don’t get it.” 

Walter came up just then. 

“We’ve got ice-cream in Papa Brown’s room,” 
he said, “but Tom can’t get it out of the 
molds.” 

“Did he set them on the radiator a minute ?” 
Marcia asked. 

“No,” said Walter, “we never thought of 


330 


HEART OF A GIRL 


that. You’d better come along, you and Mar- 
garet, and help.” 

Tom accepted the help. 

“The feminine mind grasps these things better 
than the masculine intelligence. It was Walt’s 
fool idea to surprise you. If I’d known he 
was going to do it, I’d have told him to get 
canned ice cream. These statuary things stick,” 
he said. 

“Shut up,” said Walter. 

“You paid for it all, Walter; I know you did,” 
said Margie. 

“You’re the best old thing,” said Marcia. 

“I thought we ought to have grub,” Walter 
explained. “And I jewed the man down. He 
took off a lot when I said I’d send the molds 
back.” 

“But why didn’t you get plain ice-cream?” 
Margie asked. “These molded things cost a 
lot more.” 

“Do they?” asked Walter. “By Jinks, the 
man did me. He never told me that. It’s all 
strawberry, too.” 

“Why on earth didn’t you get several kinds?” 
asked Marcia. 

“Strawberry is more chewy,” said Walter. 

“Go and send some more girls in,” Margie 
ordered. “Tom can stay and wipe off the dishes, 
and we’ll set things on the desks.” 

Tom’s lofty spirit bent itself humbly to the 


A SPLENDID WORLD 


331 


task. He dusted the plates carefully with a 
fresh eraser. 

It was a very grand supper, strawberry ice- 
cream and lady-fingers. Tom was toast-master, 
and everybody made a speech. They were all 
splendid speeches. Mr. Harmon made the fun- 
niest of all. Walter’s speech was short and to 
the point. 

“Fellow-beings,” he said, “I know I shall 
dream of pink ice-cream.” 

“That’s enough,” cried Tom. “If Walt is 
going to drop into poetry, we’ll never see our 
homes again.” 

“I didn’t drop,” said Walter. 

“You soared,” said Harry. “Your heart was 
touched. The ice-cream went to your head. Let 
us now dance. We are encouraging that organ 
grinder in slothfulness.” 

Miss Marshall danced and Mr. Harmon 
danced, and even “Papa” Brown, who came in, 
was dragged out on the floor. And because some 
of the boys could not waltz, they danced Virginia 
reels, and Mr. Harmon stamped the floor when 
“Papa” Brown and Glenda went prancing down 
the line. After that they sang, and the way Sam 
rumbled out the bass in “There Were Three 
Buzzing Bumblebees” was magnificent. Mr. 
Harmon sang “Lauriger Horatius,” and they all 
shouted out the chorus lustily. At eleven Miss 
Marshall suggested ‘‘Home, Sweet Home.’^ 


332 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Everybody knew the first verse, and after that 
they sang “Tum-ti-tum” or “Da-da-da” till they 
came to the refrain. Margie did not think of 
Gordonsville. Home was not a place. This was 
her class and her school. 

As they went out Miss Marshall said to her: 

“This is a good time to remember.” 

And Margie answered: “It’s a splendid 
world.” 

The selection of speakers for Class Day came 
soon after that. June was months away, but 
Margie urged the girls to settle things early. 

“If anybody is disappointed over not getting 
a part, there’ll be time to get over it before 
Class Day,” she said, and she made no secret of 
her wanting to be prophet. 

Miss Marshall suggested that she be class 
poet. 

“I’d rather be prophet,” said Margie. 
“We’ve already talked about having Walter for 
poet.” 

Miss Marshall laughed. 

“Why, he can’t write poetry,” she said. “I 
don’t think he’d care to speak on Class Day, any- 
way.” 

“We don’t care about what kind of a poem he 
writes,” said Margie. “We want him to speak 
so we can clap.” 

“I think Mabel wants to be prophet,” said 
Miss Marshall. 


A SPLENDID WORLD 


333 


This put a new aspect on the matter. Margie 
went to Glenda and Marcia with it. 

“We could have two prophets,” Glenda sug- 
gested. “It’s such a big class.” 

This did not please Margie. 

“We’d neither of us do well then,” she said. 
“I hate like sin to give it up.” 

“I’ll tell you what,” said Marcia. “Let’s 
suggest a class- photographer, or artist, or some- 
thing like that. Mabel could make pictures of 
us as we are now.” 

“She can’t draw well enough,” said Glenda. 

“I don’t mean real pictures of us,” Marcia 
explained. “Just funny things that hit us oft. 
You’d be easy to do. You could be looking at 
a dollar bill and saying, ‘I don’t see any cents in 
it.’ ” 

Glenda laughed. 

Marcia carried the suggestion to Mabel, who 
was immensely pleased, and when the class met 
to elect the Class Day speakers, Mabel was 
elected class photographer and Margie prophet. 
Marcia had her wish to be historian, and 
Walter, though he insisted he couldn’t write 
verses, was obviously delighted, because they 
voted for him unanimously. Harry was to make 
the class president’s speech, Louis Horton the 
farewell address of the president of the Debat- 
ing Society, Tom the speech of advice to the 
lower classes. Sam didn’t want a Class Day 


334 


HEART OF A GIRL 


part, he said. He meant to concentrate his 
strength on an oration for the prize at Com- 
mencement. 

Glenda was chosen to speak on the Boadi- 
ceans, which did not mean what it seemed to 
mean. The boys had a secret society, too, and 
the Boadiceans had surprised their secret. On 
Class Day Glenda would let them know for the 
first time that ventilation flues are excellent con- 
ductors of sound. 

They selected Will rfolmes to write the class 
song, and girls who could play or sing were set 
down for music. The rest of the class were put 
on committees. They wanted to give everybody 
a chance on Class Day, and nobody cared how 
long the programme was. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

PRINCESS FORTUNATA. 

The honor of a part in the Commencement 
Day exercises was not bestowed by favor of the 
class. It was a thing one had to win from im- 
partial judges. During the Senior year each 
member of ’90 was required to read two essays 
before the school in Assembly Hall. Nobody 
was excused. All essays were submitted to Miss 
Marshall, as teacher of composition and rhet- 
oric. She chose from the whole class of sixty, 
twenty-five to compete for Commencement parts. 
Only eight were to speak on that day. 

Margie had no doubt that she would be one of 
the twenty-five. 

“I can write better than half the class,” she 
said. 

As to being one of the eight, she was by no 
means so sure. The year before a girl who had 
never done anything had surprised everybody 
by winning her way, not only into the honored 
eight, but by walking off with the prize. You 
could not be sure of anything that depended on 
your real ability, as unbiased judges saw it. 

Margie talked over her subject with her 
335 


HEART OF A GIRL 


33 ^ 

mother and Miss Marshall. Mother never 
failed to have a suggestion for a subject ready. 
She had always helped Margie with her essays 
by suggesting a bit of fancy here, and a whim- 
sical choice of words there. Miss Marshall had 
a list of subjects ready, with notes that gave a 
hint of their treatment. 

“Indolence and Cowardice — at the bottom of 
too many of our beliefs and practices.” 

“Dodging the Drops.” 

“One-Eyed Men. — It is only in the kingdom 
of the blind that one-eyed men are kings.” 

“Protracted Misery.” 

“Other People’s Sins.” 

“American Ideals.” 

“Microscopic Eyes.” 

“The Healing Power of Admiration.” 

It was a long list, and nothing in it struck 
Margie. 

“Take a subject all your own,” said Miss 
Marshall, “and don’t be afraid of your own 
opinions.” 

A story in one of Major Winchester’s letters 
came back to Margie. He had been a prospector 
in California at one time, and not a successful 
one. At the end of three days’ search, after 
months of failure, his courage gave out. 

“Shall I go on or turn back?” he said to him- 
self. “I’ll toss up a penny. Heads, I go on; 
tails, I turn back,” 


PRINCESS FORTUNATA 


337 


The coin fell heads up. He went on a few 
rods and found one of the richest veins ever dis- 
covered in California. 

Margie decided to write on “The Force of 
Circumstances.” Later, she cut the title down 
to the last word alone, and wrote her essay be- 
tween dark and dawn that night. The sub-self 
held the pen. Afterward she re-wrote it, time 
after time, trying to better it. 

“I won’t be beaten in this,” she thought. 
“I’ve got to win.” 

In the end she carried the essay to a type- 
writer, with scarcely a word of the first draft 
changed. All the essays were to be submitted 
to the committee of five judges, none of them 
teachers, but all of them persons of literary 
taste. No names were to be signed to the typed 
copies. Only Miss Marshall knew whose name 
the number on each stood for. 

The judges spent a week over the essays. It 
was a time of fearful suspense for the twenty- 
five of ’90. 

“I’ll make up my mind not to expect to be in 
the eight,” Margie thought. “Being left out 
won’t hurt so much that way. I won’t be the 
only one left out. It won’t kill me.” 

But she could not bring herself really to stop 
expecting, stop hoping, stop praying, stop wish- 
ing on loads of hay, and observing childish 
omens. She wore a collar wrong side out to 


HEART OF A GIRL 


338 

school all one day because she had put it on that 
way, and it was bad luck to change it. She 
begged God to let her win a place, and she 
wished on the first star. 

“I know it’s silly,” she said to herself, “but 
maybe it isn’t.” 

The essay, typed, had looked so dull, its sen- 
tences so awkward. There was no sound to it. 
The judges would look at it when it was dead, 
and not know at all what it was like when alive. 

“I can’t eat at all. I’m so worked up,” Marcia 
said. “Can you?” 

“I haven’t noticed,” said Margie. 

“You look thinner than you did. Let’s go to 
the gymnasium and weigh ourselves.” 

Margie had lost six pounds since the last 
weighing, a month before. Marcia had lost 
four. Glenda had lost nothing. 

“I never did expect to get in,” she said. “I 
hate to read essays. I don’t see any sense in 
acting as if you were on trial for murder the 
way you do.” 

“It’s worse than being tried for murder,” said 
Marcia. “We don’t know whether we’re guilty 
or not. I woke up in the middle of the night last 
night, and remembered that I’d used ‘generally’ 
where it ought to have been ‘usually.’ It was 
simply awful.” 

“I’ve got one sentence in mine that makes me 
feel like Eugene Aram,” said Margie. “I said 


PRINCESS FORTUNATA 


339 


Galvani’s fame rests on a few frog legs. I know 
I ought to have said frogs’ legs. That would be 
the plural, wouldn’t it? Or would it be like 
spoonfuls? We say horses’ tails, don’t we? not 
horse tails ?” 

“Don’t ask me,” said Marcia. “I don’t know 
what anybody says. What I said was ‘generally,’ 
and it ought to have been ‘usually.’ They’ll 
never let that get by them.” 

“I’m getting so I see frogs every time I shut 
my eyes,” said Margie. “Which do you think 
I ought to have said — frog legs or frogs’ legs, 
Glenda ?” 

“Is your essay about frogs?” Glenda asked. 

“No, but I mentioned frogs.” 

“I’ll bet you and Marcia are what’s keeping 
the judges so long,” Glenda said. “They can’t 
decide which of you ought to be killed first.” 

"The judges sent in their list next day. The 
class met to hear Mr. Harmon read the names 
of the successful eight. 

“I know I didn’t get in,” Margie kept saying 
to herself. “I know I didn’t. I didn’t expect 
it.” 

And the sub-self kept saying: “It’s things 
you don’t expect that happen.” 

Mr. Harmon had not the heart to torture 
them. They all sat so still and tense, their souls 
looking through their eyes. 

“Oh God, let me win,” Margie was saying. 


340 HEART OF A GIRL 

“I don’t expect to. Please let me. I’m sure I 
won’t.” 

Marcia twisted her fingers in her lap. 

“The names of those whose essays have been 
selected by the judges are — I must mention here 
that the unusual excellence of all the essays sub- 
mitted made a choice difficult — are Samuel Lin- 
coln Willis, Henry Hodgeman Parker, Mabel 
Emma Rohlfs, Ruth Webster, Florence King 
Hawley, Thomas Breckenridge Newman, 
M ” 

“Marcia !” thought Margaret. 

“Margaret I” thought Marcia. 

“Margaret Holyoke Carlin, and Marcia Dun- 
can. 

Margie felt suddenly weak and dizzy. She 
had not touched food that day, and she was 
hungry now. 

Harry was the first of them all to speak. 

“Gee whiz I” he said. 

And they all applauded. 

The eight congratulated each other, and were 
congratulated. Every one said openly he knew 
each of the others would win the final prize. 

“Weren’t you anxious?” Margie asked Tom. 

“Not at all,” he said. “It is a small matter. 
Why be perturbed?” 

“Tom twisted his watch-chain clear in two 
while Mr. Harmon was speaking. I saw him,” 
Walter told Margie afterward. “I was all 


PRINCESS FORTUNATA 341 

worked up, too. I knew you’d win, but I didn’t 
know about Harry. He’s an only child, you 
know, and his mother would have cried her eyes 
out if he hadn’t got a part. Do you know what 
Sam did after he heard he was on the list?” 

“No,” said Margie. 

“He went into the cloak-room and blubbered. 
When I went out there he said to me: ‘Van 
Gelder, this is a momentous occasion. I am 
moved.’ ” 

This set them to laughing till their sides 
ached. The idea of big, manly Sam crying be- 
cause he had won a Commencement part. 

“There are lots of different kinds of people in 
this world,” Margie thought, “and they’re all 
alike.” 

Commencement began to loom up large now, 
and the thing that haunted Margie most was the 
expense it involved. The class would have so 
much to pay for — programmes for Class Day 
and for Commencement, decorations, music, invi- 
tations, class photographs, the class annual, class 
pins, and the gift of ’90 to the school. Beside 
this, there would be a graduating dress to buy. 
She had saved little. Her Greenville class had 
not paid well. One girl, whose father was rich, 
never paid at all, and her mother was angry 
when Margie sent a bill. 

Mr. Carlin’s salary was not large, and 
Betty’s eyes had been operated on in the 


342 


HEART OF A GIRL 


winter. Margie knew that things would be 
managed somehow, for mother was a won- 
der-hand at managing, but she must content 
herself with a muslin graduating dress. None 
of the girls would be over-dressed, though one 
of them was to wear a frock that came' from 
Paris; but soft China silks were in fashion that 
year, and Margie wanted one. She wanted, too, 
bronze slippers and silk stockings. Slippers did 
make such a difference. It seemed too bad to 
have anything you had to forget about on Com- 
mencement Day. 

One of the shops showed in its window just 
the silk Margie wanted. It was soft and shim- 
mering, with an irregular weave like linen. She 
looked at it every time she passed. A cheap 
silk would not do. Mrs. Carlin believed that a 
good cotton was infinitely better than a cheap 
silk. Margie never wore anything that was not 
good of its kind. 

Margie felt that she could do herself justice 
better in a silk frock — th^t lovely, soft silk — 
than in a muslin. You never remembered your 
clothes when they were right. And mother could 
make it so beautifully. No trimming, but just 
mother’s dainty stitches in soft tucks. All the 
other girls were going to wear silk. 

“I won’t think of it,” Margie said to herself. 
“But I do wish I could have it.” 

Marcia’s aunt in Chicago was to send her a 


PRINCESS FORTUNATA 


343 


white crepe as a present. The Carlins never 
had presents like that from their kinsfolk. Mar- 
gie almost wished they did, but, of course, one 
couldn’t take things to wear from people. It 
wasn’t the Gordon way. Only Grandmother 
Carlin had ever sent her anything to wear, and 
grandmother was dead now. Bronze slippers 
in another window gave her a heartache. 

*T won’t look at them again,” she decided. 
“I’ll forget them, and think of my essay. I’ll 
look well enough.” 

She still sent manuscripts to magazines now 
and then, and they came back to her at school. 
She did not want mother and Betty to know and 
be disappointed for her. Their sympathy made 
things harder. She could not bear to tell them 
about the silk and the slippers. Betty would feel 
so unhappy, because the operation on her eyes 
had cost so much. Margie did her best not to 
think of the silk and the slippers, and dreamed at 
night that Major Winchester was alive and had 
sent them to her. 

Walter made little headway with his poem. 
His mother, he said, was to give him a diamond 
pin if he made a success of it. 

“I don’t care about the pin,” he said, “but 
father and mother will be there. I can’t make 
the darned lines scan.” 

Margie supposed a diamond pin must cost a 
hundred dollars. Twenty dollars would have 


344 


HEART OF A GIRL 


bought dress and slippers and stockings, too. 
Walter mustn’t fail with the poem. 

“Maybe I can help you,” she said. 

“Can you spare the time?” Walter asked. 

“Of course,” said Margie. 

They spent all of one long afternoon out in 
the woods working over the poem. Walter did 
not take the horse and cart that day. Their 
favorite nook was easier to reach by the electric 
cars. More-than one afternoon they had studied 
their Virgil out there with Glenda and Marcia 
and Harry. To-day they were alone and it was 
beautiful out there, beside a little stream that fell 
in a silver ribbon over brown rocks, to a wide 
pool below. Cow-bells tinkled a-far off, and now 
and then somebody passed along the path beyond 
the waterfall. There were other people out 
there, too, but Margie and Walter were alone in 
the Maytime world and the woods. 

“I could write a Latin poem easier than I can 
an English one,” Walter said. “I can almost 
think one up now. ^Rupes pastorum Margaret- 
aque Walter et fiumenJ I bet you anything that 
scans.” 

“But we’re not shepherds,” said Margie. 
“Let’s see your English poem.” 

“But we Mar gar etaque Walter et flumen' 

It’s nice out here. I could almost go to sleep.” 

“You mustn’t. You must fix your mind on 
the poem.” 


PRINCESS FORTUNATA 


345 


“I’d rather let you fix yours,” said Walter. 
“I don’t want to think. I just want to sit here 
and do nothing.” 

Margie insisted on work. The poem was 
brought out. It was dactyllic hexameter in 
places, but most of the lines had sprouted feet as 
prodigally as a centipede. It was full of classic 
allusions, and in the main was a defiance of old 
age. 

“Thou shuttest the gates of our youth as Hes- 
per the gates of Olympus” was the last line 
Walter had written. 

“That’s where I stuck,” he said. “I wanted 
to say that ’90 would live forever, and be always 
young, and all that, you know. But it doesn’t 
scan unless you mispronounce a lot.” 

“Let’s go on from there, and fix the first part 
afterward,” Margie suggested. 

They thought of Pandora’s box, and made 
Old Age the first ill that escaped from it. They 
pleaded with him to spare them, and then 
showed him how powerless he was. They 
likened wrinkles to creases in rose-leaves. Time 
could never harm them because their hearts were 
young, and would never be any older. They put 
Old Age back into the box with sounding words, 
and unconquerable Youth turned the key on 
him.” 

“Do you ever think about being old?” Margie 
asked. 


346 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“Not very often,” said Walter. “I suppose 
it’ll just come along easy. All the people I like 
will be old, too, when I am.” 

“But maybe you won’t be like them then. 
They may change.” 

“You won’t change,” said Walter. “You’U 
be the same Madgy.” 

Madgy was his name for her when they were 
alone. 

“I don’t know. It seems to me I change pretty 
often,” she said. “How curly your hair is, 
Walter. I never saw it so much so before.” 

“It ought to be cut. I’m holding off so to 
have it done the day before Class Day. I want 
it short then.” 

“It looks better long,” Margie said. 

“You talk like my mother. She’d like me to 
let it grow long enough to do up. I hate the 
darned thing myself.” 

He smoothed the curl over his forehead, dis- 
gustedly. 

“You don’t hate it a bit. I believe you curl 
it on tongs, or put something on it.” 

“I use an invention of my own — Wan Gelder’s 
Curlena,’ ” said Walter. 

They laughed at that. Laughter came easily to 
them when they were together. They never ar- 
gued. There was never anything to argue about. 

“Let’s get at the first of the poem now,” Mar- 
gie suggested. 


PRINCESS FORTUNATA 347 

“You fix it,” said Walter. “You can do it 
better. Just fix it your way. If there are any 
words you can’t read, tell me.” 

Margie bent over the poem. There was a 
word presently that she could not make out. She 
looked up at Walter. He was leaning back 
against his tree, asleep. He looked so comfort- 
able she did not wake him. His face seemed a 
little sad, but not lifeless, like most people’s faces 
when they slept. It was still good and honest 
and manly. She finished the few lines of the 
poem. It seemed lonely then, with Walter 
asleep. 

“Wake up,” she said. 

Walter opened his eyes and smiled. 

“Hello, Madgy,” he said. 

“What did you dream about?” she asked. 

“Nothing. I never have dreamed.” 

“We’d better go now. It’s getting chilly,” 
said Margie. 

“All right,” Walter answered. “But I wish 
we could stay out here always. It’s so comfort- 
able doing nothing.” 

It was chilly in the open car going home. 

“Your mother wouldn’t let you go again if we 
didn’t get back before sundown,” he said. 
“We’ve got to hurry.” 

Margie was shivering when she reached 
home. Her throat was sore when she woke in 
the morning, but she went to school. The 


HEART OF A GIRL 


348 

Juniors were to give their reception and banquet 
to the Seniors that evening, and she did not want 
to miss it. Giving in to the sore throat would 
make going out in the evening impossible. She 
was hoarse all day, but she had a poem to recite 
at the banquet, and she would not give that up, 
either. 

The reception began at seven, and the ban- 
quet was over at nine. There was an envelope 
for Margie in the letter-box as she came in. She 
tucked it into her pocket unopened. She knew 
what it was. Her poems always came back that 
way, and she did not want to spoil the evening 
by thinking about it just then. 

There were toasts at the banquet, toasts 
drunk in lemonade, and Margie’s turn came last. 
The narrow corridor where the table was set 
seemed to widen into a great banquet hall as she 
stood up to respond to “Our School.” It was 
not a Junior party, it was the last meeting of 
long-time friends. 

“The banquet’s almost over. 

The lights are burning low; 

Fill the glasses to the brim. 

We’ll drink before we go!” 

She tried to ring out the last line, but some- 
thing seemed to deaden her voice. She could 
not feel it come out. 


PRINCESS FORTUNATA 349 

“We drink, not rare champagne, 

Nor of the Spanish vine; 

We drink the memories of years, 

Good fellowship’s the wine. 

“To thee we drink, old school. 

To thee, with throbbing heart; 

With smiles that we have known thee. 

With tears that we must part. 

“And forever and forever. 

While our onward march we keep 
To the sound of rising nations 
And our own hearts’ steady beat, 

“While the life-blood warms within us. 

To the school we love the most. 

From the great world’s wider school-room. 
To thee, shall be our toast. 

“The stars and night are fading. 

The morning brightens cool. 

But again before we sever, 

A health to thee, old school.” 

There was no ring in the last line. It came 
out in a hoarse whisper. 

As she sat down, the unopened envelope 
dropped from her pocket. She picked it up and 
looked at it. She could open it now. Every- 


350 


HEART OF A GIRL 


body was getting ready to go home, and nobody 
would notice. Two more rejected poems 
wouldn’t matter much. They were merely an 
attempt to be funny, and she wouldn’t try to be 
funny again. 

A crisp pink slip was pinned to the sheet of 
paper inside the envelope. She had never seen 
anything like it before. There must be some 
mistake. 

“What’s this?” she whispered hoarsely to 
Marcia. 

“My goodness! A check for eighteen dol- 
lars,” Marcia cried. “What is it for?” 

“Verses,” whispered Margie. “Just rhymes.” 

And oh, the beauty of it! The wonder of a 
world where things like that happened to you ! 
The splendidness of having the silk dress and 
the bronze slippers. Oh, yes, indeed, it was a 
splendid world. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


AGAINST ODDS. 

It was wonderful to carry the check home to 
mother and Betty. They were so delighted, 
Margie was too hoarse to talk, and she was still 
a little uncertain as to whether the magazine 
could really have accepted her verses. It was 
the best known humorous weekly in America, 
and how on earth had she ever managed to write 
anything good enough for it? And the printed 
slip asking you “Please to accept the accompany- 
ing check and deposit it at your earliest conve- 
nience.” It was the way checks came to real 
writers. Only a check couldn’t mean so much to 
Mr. Howells or Mr. Bunner. It couldn’t mean 
an absolutely dream-like silk dress and bronze 
slippers and perfect happiness. 

Margie went to bed in a daze of bliss. To- 
morrow would be Saturday, and the dress would 
be hers. She would buy it and carry it home. 
It was exactly like Christmas Eve in Gordons- 
ville. 


351 


352 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“I do believe I never was so happy over any- 
thing before,’’ she thought. 

In the morning she was still too hoarse to 
speak. 

“You must go see Dr. Wilkins about that 
cold,” Mrs. Carlin said. 

The shopping could wait till Monday. It 
would be lovely to look forward to all day Sun- 
day, and she could decide with mother and Betty 
how to make the dress. She passed the shop 
window on her way to the doctor’s office, and 
saw, to her dismay, that the silk was gone. She 
hurried in and asked to see white silks. Yes, 
they still had hers. She took a sample of it. It 
seemed like taking a check for one’s trunk. The 
silk was hers, and she and mother could claim 
it Monday. 

Dr. Wilkins examined her throat, and asked 
her many questions. Had the deadening of the 
voice not been coming on a long time? Margie 
remembered now that it had. Dr. Wilkins said 
a great many things she did not understand. 

“I think two months of treatment ought to 
set things right,” he said. “At least, you won’t 
be hoarse then.” 

“I have to speak at Commencement. That’s 
just four weeks off,” said Margaret, not quite 
understanding. 

“You can’t do it,” said the doctor. 

“Oh, please, please fix it so I can !” she broke 


AGAINST ODDS 


353 


hoarsely out in terror. “I just must be able to 
speak. I can’t give it up. Oh, please, can’t you 
do something? I’d rather die than not speak.” 

“Oh, you’re in the High School,” said Dr. 
Wilkins. He had seen her only once or twice 
before. “I didn’t quite place you. You’re in 
Walter Van Gelder’s class, aren’t you?” 

Margie nodded. 

“Walter’s a great friend of mine,” said the 
doctor. “Let’s look into that throat and those 
posterior nasal cavities again.” 

He shook his head over the examination. 

“I don’t see how it can be done,” he said. 

Margie broke down utterly. 

“Don’t cry,” said Dr. Wilkins; “maybe we 
can fix things. You see, the trouble is that there 
will be several little operations, and they’re a tax 
on the strength. You couldn’t stand having 
them done so close together.” 

“I can stand anything,” said Margie. “I 
know I can. I don’t care what has to be done — 
do it.” 

“Could you come Monday?” Dr. Wilkins 
asked. “I’d do the worst thing then.” 

“Can’t you begin now?” 

“I could, but wouldn’t you want somebody 
with you ?” 

“No; I want it done now.” 

The only thing she asked for was another 
chair. The one she was sitting in had no arms. 


354 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“I’ll ask my assistant to come in and hold yonr 
head.” 

“I’ll hold it still,” she said. “I’d rather not 
have anybody watch me if it’s going to be bad.” 

It was bad, horribly bad. She shut her eyes 
and held tightly to the chair. 

“I must stand it,” she thought. “I’ve got to 
stand it.” 

She did not move her head the fraction of an 
inch. 

When it was over, she began to think of what 
all this treatment was going to cost. It would 
cost enough, she felt sure, to make having the 
dress impossible. What difference did giving up 
the dress make now ? Being able to speak was 
all that mattered. She spoke to the physician 
about the cost. 

“I’d like to pay eighteen dollars of it now,” 
she said, taking out the check. 

The doctor looked at the check with interest. 

“Why, did you sell these people something?” 

Margie nodded proudly. 

“It’s the first,” she said. 

“I wouldn’t take it for the world,” said Dr. 
Wilkins. “You’ll never have another first check. 
You can pay me with your second check.” 

“Maybe there won’t be a second,” whispered 
Margie. 

“Oh, yes, there will. I’ll tell you how it is. 
I’m interested in this case. If I get you so you 


AGAINST ODDS 


355 


can speak In a month, it will be one of the big- 
gest jobs I ever did, and I’ll read a paper on it 
at the next surgical congress. You can pay me 
out of the second check. I shan’t charge you 
as much as I would if I weren’t In a way making 
capital out of the thing. I don’t send my bills 
out but twice a year. Yours will be nineteen 
dollars, and you’ll get it In January.” 

Margie had no idea what his usual fees were, 
and this arrangement satisfied her. 

“Come Monday,” he said. “I’ll do my best 
with you. And spend that check for the thing 
you want most In the world.” 

Marcia and Glenda came to see her on Sun- 
day afternoon. It was hard to remember not 
to talk much, for looking over fashion maga- 
zines and discussing the style was so exciting. 
Glenda thought the sample was beautiful. 

“It ought to be made some plain way, and 
very full,” she said. 

“That’s the way I want it,” said Margie. 
“Wide tucks around the skirt, and a round, 
shirred yoke.” 

“I’m going to make most of mine myself,” 
said Glenda. “It’ll all be machine work, and 
I won’t bind a single seam. I don’t see any sense 
In wasting time finishing a dress off on the Inside. 
Nobody sees that.” 

“My grandmother used to have a conniption 
fit if anybody talked like that. I put on a stock- 


HEART OF A GIRL 


356 

ing once with a hole in it, and she quoted that 
thing about ‘the gods see everywhere/ I told 
her I didn’t care if they did, but she asked me 
how I’d feel if I had my leg broken and people 
took my shoe off and saw the hole,” said Margie. 

“I wouldn’t think about my stockings if my 
leg was broken,” said Glenda; “I’d think about 
the leg. I hate to mend things. It worries my 
mother awfully because I won’t do fancy work.” 

“I have some of my great-grandmother’s 
fancy work, and some of grandmother’s, too,” 
said Margie. “I’ll show them to you.” 

“You oughtn’t to talk so much with your 
throat sore,” said Glenda. “Let us do the talk- 
ing.” 

Margie brought out a quaint, old, beaded bag, 
and a shoulder cape of fine linen, yellow with 
age. The cape had a deep collar, and about the 
edge of both cape and collar ran exquisite em- 
broidery. 

“Why, it’s got letters on it,” said Marcia. 
“ ^Sic transit gloria mundi! ” 

“Grandmother squared her conscience that 
way,” said Margie. “She didn’t believe in pam- 
pering the unworthy body and encouraging it in 
wicked vanity, but she liked pretty things. The 
motto was to set a good example to the world.” 

“How funny!” said Marcia. “But the thing 
Is beautiful.” 

“Imagine worrying about liking pretty 


AGAINST ODDS 


357 

things,” said Glenda. “Your grandmother must 
have been a lovely old person to live with.” 

“She was so good she made you want to be 
bad,” said Margie. “When she made me learn 
the catechism, and explained to me about elec- 
tion, I went out and rooted up a whole flower- 
bed. I thought if the thing was settled anyway, 
I might as well be wicked and enjoy myself.” 

“I couldn’t enjoy rooting up flowers,” said 
Marcia. “I never had enough in my life.” 

“It wasn’t the flowers,” Margie explained; “it 
was the wickedness of rooting things up that I 
wanted.” 

“I hope we’ll get lots of flowers at Commence- 
ment,” said Marcia. 

“I do wish we’d decide not to have any,” said 
Margie. “I went to Commencement once down 
home, and some of the graduates didn’t get any. 
Mother took a whole market basketful of bou- 
quets so she could send them to the ones who 
didn’t get any, and even things up a bit.” 

“I evened things up last year,” said Glenda. 
“I was a flower-girl, and I took the cards off all 
the bouquets in the lobby and divided them 
evenly. I didn’t see any sense in hurting people’s 
feelings at Commencement.” 

Marcia and Margie laughed. 

“Let’s get the class to agree not to have 
flowers sent to the church. No flowers,” said 
Margie. 


HEART OF A GIRL 


358 

“Oh, you’d get as many as anybody,” said 
Marcia. “You needn’t worry.” 

“Don’t you think I can ever have an unselfish 
idea?” asked Margie, not at all vexed. 

“Not so it would be perceptible to the naked 
eye; but you’re right about the flowers. We’ll 
vote not to have any. Glenda wouldn’t be on 
hand with her inventive genius. Glenda has a 
splendid mind. I’m going now. I have to learn 
my part. I changed ‘generally’ to ‘usually.’ ” 

Margie had her part to learn, too, and the 
prophecy beside. It was not possible to dispose 
of the whole class of sixty in a short speech. 
Even by grouping the less conspicuous ones, the 
prophecy would take nearly twenty minutes to 
read, and she meant to be letter perfect in it. 

But learning the two speeches was not all. 
The elocution teacher told her they must be re- 
hearsed. This was a difficulty Margie had not 
considered. 

“I can’t rehearse,” she said. “Dr. Wilkins 
says I mustn’t use my voice any more than I can 
help. I don’t see what I’ll do about it.” 

“You couldn’t give your essay without re- 
hearsing,” said the teacher. “Delivery counts 
half, you know. The Auditorium is a big place 
to speak in, and you’ll have to be able to make 
yourself heard.” 

Margie’s heart sank. She was bearing Dr. 
Wilkins’ treatment very well, and he seemed 


AGAINST ODDS 


359 

more hopeful every time he saw her, but re- 
hearsing was entirely out of the question. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the teacher. 
“I’ll read your essay over to you and you can 
practise it at home. Try to remember it as I 
say it, and perhaps toward the end you can re- 
hearse it once or twice. You’d better let some- 
body else read the prophecy, anyway.” 

The elocution teacher read the essay beauti- 
fully, but Margie felt perfectly blank when she 
had finished it. Of course, the teacher must 
know how it ought to be read, but she didn’t 
make the different things mean what Margie 
meant by them. She read “Galvani’s fame 

rests ” and a pause, “on a few frog legs.” 

It sounded like a bit of pleasantry, and that was 
not what it was intended for. If people laughed 
there, the rest would fall flat. She tried to 
appear grateful for the favor, but the elocution 
teacher was cutting the throat of an essay she 
loved. 

If the prophecy would be changed that way, 
by having somebody else read it — it ought to be 
said, anyway, not read. It wouldn’t go at all 
in any other way. What a way the world had 
of changing every time you began to call it splen- 
did ! Will Holmes offered to read the prophecy. 

“I’ll read it over a lot of times so I can keep 
my face straight when the time comes,” he said. 

Oh, dear, to have anybody read it and laugh I 


HEART OF A GIRL 


360 

Nothing could be funny unless the person who 
read it kept from laughing. Walter was the 
only person who could read it at all, and Walter 
had the poem to read. 

She thanked Will, and let him take the 
prophecy. If it had to be done, it had to be. 
But, oh, how silly it would sound I There was a 
part, too, that ought to be rattled off fast, and 
he wouldn’t do it. 

“If I find at the last minute I can speak it,” 
she said to Will, “I’ll do it. I know it now by 
heart, and maybe I won’t be hoarse then.” 

Will had the words of the Class Song to write. 
Miss Marshall spoke to Margie about it. 

“I wish you’d look over it,” she said. “It 
doesn’t fit the tune he picked out the way it is.” 

It was hard to change the verses without hurt- 
ing Will’s feelings. 

“We hold the palm of Victory,” 
one stanza ran. 

“The dust no longer obscures our sight. 
Now forward into the world we go. 

To labor onward and to fight.” 

“I like the idea,” said Margie, trying to think 
of a way to get rid of “labor onward.” “But 
I don’t believe fight is a good singing word. It 
is a hard vowel to sing.” 


AGAINST ODDS 


361 


“Is it?” asked Will. 

Margie had no idea whether it was or not, 
but she said a singer had told her so. 

“A or ah are easier sounds,” she said. “It 
makes a great difference in the way a song 
sounds what vowel you use. It isn’t like spoken 
poetry.” 

“What sound is there we could use?” Will 
asked. 

“Let me see,” said Margie. “Aim — blame — 
came — fame — came — fame.” 

“I couldn’t say, ‘Dust has came,’ could I? I 
want to bring in dust. It’s in the motto.” 

“The dust of battle ” 

“O’er us came!” said Will. “That fits it. 
“The dust of battle o’er us came,” he sang. 
“That’s better than the way I had it before. 
It’s the same idea. Now, the last line — I could 
end it with fame.” 

“Palms of some two-syllable word — fame,” 
said Margie. “Now out into the world we go, 
to dum dum palms of dum dum fame.” 

Will considered for a few minutes. 

“I’ve got it,” he cried. “To strive for palms 
of greater fame.” 

“That’s good,” said Margie. “It’s the same 
idea you had before, and I think it will be better 
to sing.” 

“I think so, too,” Will agreed. 

“And nobody’ll hear the words, anyway,” she 


HEART. DE A GIRL 


362 

thought to herself. “I hope to goodness Glenda 
won’t say she can’t see any sense in it.” 

The matter of the essay troubled her. She 
went with it to Mrs. Morgan, who had taught 
her all she knew of Physical Culture. 

“Read it to me softly,” Mrs. Morgan said, 
“and when I see exactly what you want to say 
in every line. I’ll read it.” 

This was splendid. Mrs. Morgan read it so 
it seemed to mean what it was intended to mean. 
More than that, she showed Margie how to 
bring out every point. She read it again and 
again, till Margie knew just how she gave it the 
right sound in every place. 

“I like it,” said Mrs. Morgan, “but it needs a 
picture in it somewhere, a touch, just a little 
touch of something dramatic. Most essays lack 
that when you turn them into orations.” 

“We’re allowed to make any changes we 
like,” said Margie. “I’ll try to illustrate one 
picture some way. I think I see what you mean.” 

All the way to school every morning she said 
her essay over in her mind. 

“If I can speak loud enough to be heard,” she 
thought, “I know how I want to do it.” 

But not being able to rehearse was a fearful 
handicap. All the others were rehearsing almost 
daily. Marcia had such a clear voice, and Sam 
such a big one, and Tom was so learned. His 
oration was to be on “Modern Tendencies.” 


AGAINST ODDS 


363 

The very name was discouraging to any one who 
had chosen “Circumstances,” and written out an 
essay without looking up anything. Marcia had 
selected “The Woman of To-morrow,” and 
Sam’s oration would be on “Politics, in Practice 
and in Theory.” They were all such big sub- 
jects, and Margie knew that Marcia had read 
ever so many deep books before she began to 
write her essay. 

“And I just slap-dashed mine off,” she 
thought. “It’s only what I think of things. I 
wish I’d chosen something hard.” 

The boys who were not to speak were making 
bets on the winner of the Commencement prize. 
It was a dictionary on an iron stand, and winning 
it would be a greater achievement than being 
elected President of the United States. The bets 
were trifling, but the betting was spirited. 

“I’ve got a lot of bets on you,” Walter told 
Margie. 

“It doesn’t seem exactly right to bet. I’d hate 
to have you lose.” 

“It isn’t money. Most of it’s candy and neck- 
ties. The only money I’ve got up is with Ver- 
dant Greenness Johnson. He made me mad, 
and I made him write it down — five to one.” 

Margie did not understand at all. 

“If I win, do you get five dollars?” she asked. 

“Yes,” said Walter. 

“And if I lose, do you have to pay him five ?’^ 


3^4 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“No; I don’t lose but one.” 

Margie began to see. 

“That means he thinks I won’t win, doesn’t it ? 
He’s so sure I won’t he’s willing to risk five dol- 
lars.” 

Walter looked uncomfortable. 

' “I wish you wouldn’t ask about it. I didn’t 
mean to tell you.” 

“But that’s what it means?” 

“Yes; but he’s afraid of you. He wanted to 
back out afterwards, and I wouldn’t let him. 
IVe got my setter pup bet against another fel- 
low’s knife. That’s how sure I feel. I’d take 
a hundred to one shot on you.” 

“I wish you’d tell me ” 

“Glenda’s fixed it so she’ll win no matter who 
gets the prize. She’s bet that you and Sam and 
Tom and Marcia will all lose. And she’s bet 
with other people that you’ll all win.” 

“Did she bet I’d win, too?” 

“Yes, that was with me. If you win I pay her 
two pounds of candy, and she has to pay other 
people three pounds, because Tom and Marcia 
and Sam don’t win. If you lose she has to pay 
me a pound, and three of the girls a pound 
apiece, because she loses on her other bets, and 
she wins from each of them except from the per- 
son who picks out the winner.” 

Margie laughed. 

^‘How much candy does that give her?” 


AGAINST ODDS 


3^5 

“I did know till I tried to explain. Now, she 
bet two to one on Marcia with somebody else, 
and two to one either against or for Sam, I for- 
get which, to even it up.” 

“Suppose none of us four wins? There are 
four beside us, you know. Does Glenda win, 
then? If she has two to one against me, and 
two to one for Marcia, and two to one, one way 
or the other, on Sam, and one on each of us 
both ways, and Harry, say, wins. How much 
will she have then?” 

“You’d have to do that by Pi R square to get 
any answer,” said Walter. “Glenda didn’t think 
about the other four. If she does I don’t know 
how she’ll bet. She wouldn’t bet even after 

you ” Walter stopped suddenly. “You’ll 

win, anyway,” he said, hastily. 

“You were going to say after I had this 
trouble with my voice,” Margie said. “Was it 
that way with the other things?” 

“I wish you wouldn’t ask questions,” said 
Walter. “I’d bet anything I had had that you’ll 
win. I know you will. Glenda’s a hedger. She 
bet against both you and Marcia.” 

“But she didn’t bet five to one against Marcia. 
I know she didn’t. Are they betting on us all?” 

“Yes,” said Walter. “Nothing much, but 
everybody likes to bet.” 

“I wish you’d tell me one thing, Walter : Who 
do most of them think will win?” 


366 


HEART OF A GIRL 


“It’s an even gamble. Most of them thought 
you would at first. For goodness’ sake, Madgy, 
don’t keep asking questions. I’d take a hundred 
to one shot on you any time.” 

“I have only one chance in a hundred,” said 
Margie. “But I’m just not going to give in.” 

“Sam’s already lying awake nights, wondering 
how he’ll carry the dictionary home,” said 
Walter. “Last year Jo Ward had a man hired 
beforehand, he was so anxious to be prepared. 
And he didn’t get it. It isn’t safe for anybody 
to count on getting anything till the thing’s 
over.” 

“I am going to count on it,” said Margie. “I 
might as well stop trying to make myself think 
I don’t count on it. I do. I’m going to put up 
the best fight I possibly can. It won’t kill me 
to lose, but I won’t lose if I can help it.” 

“You won’t lose,” said Walter, but his tone 
lacked confidence. The odds were heavy against 
her. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE. 

The Wednesday of Class Day came in with- 
out a cloud in the sky. All morning the Seniors 
were busy with the last touches of the decora- 
tions. The stage in the Assembly Hall was 
draped in myrtle green and Nile bunting. The 
banner of genius and ’90 was crowned with 
flowers. ’Ninety had intended having palms, but 
palms were too expensive to cut up. Two of 
them, in tubs, flanked the banner. At the back 
of the stage, on a background of white, was 
“Palma non sine pulvere” in silver paper. 
Everybody had helped cut out the letters, drawn 
by Marcia, and Sam had pasted them on the 
sheet. 

Above the motto stretched the Stars and 
Stripes. Glenda had wanted it draped below, 
but, to Margie’s mind, nothing must ever hang 
above the flag, nor must it be tortured into fes- 
toons. It would have looked better below, 
Glenda thought, but that was not the point with 
Margie. The Gordons had a feeling about the 
367 


HEART OF A GIRL 


368 

flag. Even Uncle Fred, who had been a Con- 
federate, never let anyone trample the Stars and 
Stripes if he could help it, and it was safer for 
people not to discuss the matter with him. The 
flag meant a part of the splendidness of the 
world. The war record of her family was a 
great pride to her, and the most splendid thing 
in it was the time when Great-Uncle John saw 
the Confederates burst from the woods and come 
yelling across a wide field to the hill where he 
and his men stood, and they looked so splendid 
that Uncle John swung off his hat and shouted: 
‘‘Give ’em three cheers, boys; they’re our coun- 
trymen. And now give them ” exactly what 

war was. 

Lincoln and the flag were two things Margie 
thought about with a thrill in the roots of her 
hair. She had urged the class to give a bust of 
Lincoln to the school as their farewell gift. Lin- 
coln came from Illinois, and mother had spoken 
with him many a time. The class wanted to give 
a bust — plaster busts made a great show for the 
money — but they chose Pallas Athene, to Mar- 
gie’s disgust. Still, Pallas Athene did seem 
more appropriate. If you gave a bust of Lincoln 
it wouldn’t be Class Day. It would be a Lin- 
coln Day. Pallas Athene, draped in white, sat 
on her pedestal at one side of the stage. 

The Assembly Hall looked better than ever 
before in its history. No other class had ever 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 369 

trimmed it up so artistically. ’Eighty-nine had 
spent more money, but ’90 had taste. After it 
was all done there was just time to flutter home, 
and dress in a flutter, and flutter back again to 
be ready to march in at two. 

There was no flutter when you marched in. 
Seniors were above that sort of thing. 

The hall was packed to suffocation. How 
well the duet went! — “The Invitation to the 
Dance,” and how easy and witty and impressive 
Harry was as he stood up to welcome the au- 
dience. And Louis Horton’s farewell address as 
president of the Debating Society was dignified. 
Tom fairly withered the lower classes with his 
speech of advice to them. It was witty, too, and 
precisely what it ought to have been. The 
Juniors were such children. 

Glenda, instead of telling about the Boadi- 
ceans, as the boys expected, told all the girls had 
found out concerning the boys’ secret society, 
the Spartans. The girls had climbed into the 
cold-air flue to listen, and Glenda described 
everything that happened at one meeting — even 
the things they had said about the girls. 

Then, to the surprise of the girls, Sam, who 
had pretended to have no Class Day part, de- 
scribed an initiation in the Boadiceans. It was 
the most ridiculous thing ever heard. He made 
it all out of whole cloth, described how the girls 
all talked at once and said mean things and got 


370 


HEART OF A GIRL 


mixed on parliamentary rules. It was funny, 
though, and Margie enjoyed it more than the 
Boadiceans did, though everybody laughed. 

The class history interested her less. She had 
been not quite two years a member of ’90. 

Then came music again, and after that the 
class poem. How they cheered Walter, and how 
the heartiness of their cheering embarrassed 
him. There were his mother and father half- 
way back at one side, and how pleased they 
looked. He went through it perfectly, too, only 
that after the Pandora’s box line he said: 

“Old Age then escaping his prison. 

Gaunt and revengeful first issued.” 

“Decrepit” was the word, not “revengeful,” 
and “revengeful” was so much better. 

The class photographer had immense sheets 
of paper fastened together at the top, and hung 
on an easel. Harry’s picture came first. It was 
a butterfly, with a huge necktie on. The class 
laughed at once, and the audience laughed, too, 
when Mabel described him as flitting from 
flower to flower. He was the beau of the class. 

They laughed again at Tom’s picture. It was 
a school-house with “Co-education” over the 
door, and Tom down in one corner shedding 
large tears. 

There was the dollar bill for Glenda, and 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 371 

Marcia’s line about seeing no sense in it. And 
for Walter, a picture of a grub; “He won’t be 
happy till he gets it.” 

Sam was a giant, with St. Anthony mashed 
flat under his foot, and Ruth Webster poking 
at the victim with a telegraph pole. 

Marcia’s picture was somebody labeled Rus- 
kin, and somebody labeled Socrates, and a third 
labeled Michael Angelo, all on their knees be- 
fore Marcia, who paid them no attention. She 
was busy rewriting Roberts’ Rules of Order. 

Margie kept wondering what her picture 
would be. Perhaps they’d make her a writer or 
maybe — no, they wouldn’t bring in the swelled 
head on Class Day. None of the pictures or the 
speeches that went with them were the kind that 
hurt. They poked fun, but in a funny way. She 
had guessed who was meant in nearly every pic- 
ture. The heart’s-ease for Florence Hawley 
puzzled her most. She had not expected senti- 
ment among the pictures, but Florence was lov- 
able, though not so interesting as Marcia nor 
so amusing as Glenda. And the ring with the 
diamond in it, whom could that stand for? 

“With many facets,” said Mabel, “equally 
brilliant on each of them. The only solitaire in 
our class ring, Margaret Carlin.” 

Margaret felt her eyes fill with tears, and 
tears did not come easily to her. The class ap- 
plauded ; they seemed to think the picture good. 


372 


HEART OF A GIRL 


Could they really agree to such a compliment as 
that? How splendid it was of them, and how 
kind ! How good they had always been to her, 
letting her come in and giving her a place among 
them, when she was a stranger, and hadn’t been 
a Fourth and a Third with them. Did they, 
could they really believe she could do things? 
She was almost sorry mother and Betty were in 
the audience. After the mean way she had 
talked at home about her fights and tricks at 
school. It hadn’t been a fight. ’Ninety had let 
her have things. 

A few more pictures now, and then would 
come the prophecy. Margie whispered to Will 
Holmes : 

“I can say it,” she said. She must do her best 
for ’90. 

It was the last thing on the programme, and 
the audience was tired. Margie forgot all about 
her voice as she went forward. The people 
down there must be made to take an interest. 
She would look at them so hard, talk to each one 
of them so directly, that they must sit up and 
listen. 

“It’s a theory of a modem philosopher,” she 
began, speaking as if she were saying it to the 
Utile Dulces, “that each of us is not one person 
all his life, but a series of individuals of various 
degrees of differentiation. To-day we are not 
what we were yesterday, nor what we shall be 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 373 

tomorrow. Somewhere in the universe exist 
the beings we have been, and the other beings 
we shall be. All we need to do to see these 
other selves of ours is to step outside the rule of 
Time. I will not stop to explain how I did this. 
Suffice it, that I found the way by a process which 
involves passing through the fourth dimension 
of space. This point reached, the ethereal es- 
sence is beyond the control of time. I stepped 
at once from 1890 into 1900 and odd. The 
city was little changed. St. Anthony had been 
taken in as a suburb. I walked up a street and 
I met a dear little boy in knickerbockers, with 
a large bow under his chin.” 

It was unnecessary to mention Harry’s name 
after that. He had studied medicine, Margie 
said, and set out to discover an elixir of youth. 

“ ‘My great mistake,’ he said, ‘was in not 
being a homeopath. I took too much of the 
thing. A few drops would have kept me the 
age I was. I grew younger. I wenf back to 
school a Senior, and graduated a Fourth. The 
girl I loved, the last one, won’t let me play in 
her yard now. I’m too young.’ ” 

He ran away then, for one of his former class- 
mates, on whom he had experimented, came 
down the street. Harry had found something 
to make people grow, but, by mistake, had given 
it to this man as a liniment for a sore throat. 
It settled in his throat, which was now so long 


374 


HEART OF A GIRL 


he had to wear it wound round a spool. Two 
girls who had never done anything in the class, 
and a third who was gentle and kind, were 
taking care of Harry in their Home for Friend- 
less Boys. Another group of conspicuous ones 
went off to civilize the natives of San Adobe 
Frijoles, with the by-laws of the General De- 
bating Society as their basis of civilization. 
Walter had a factory for making Van Gelder’s 
Curlena. It curled hair so tightly that in the 
end it pulled it out by the roots, so that Walter 
gave up selling it for anything but furniture 
polish. Rubbed on, it turned plain pine into 
curly maple. 

Tom was a book agent. This was the part to 
rattle off. He had a long speech about how fine 
his book was. It was a History of Marcia, First 
Dictator of the Boadicean Republic, formerly 
America. Tom sold it to women entirely, he 
said. Colleges were no longer open to men, and 
few of them could read. 

Sam was owner of the Western Union, which 
he had won when the government raffled it off. 

And Ruth Webster, Margie had meant the 
lines about her as a deep and subtle stab. She 
pictured Ruth introducing a speaker at a mass- 
meeting. She was greeted with cheers. 

“They paid her a tribute that a queen might 
have been proud to receive,” Margie said. 
“Paid it, not because of her eloquence, for her 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 375 

words were few and simple; not because of her 
political power, for she was not a politician ; not 
to her wit, nor to her wealth, but to herself, that 
rarest of rare things, a perfect and womanly 
woman.” 

There was no stab in it as Margie said it. It 
sounded like a touch of honest sentiment, and 
Margie meant it to sound so. 

Marcia was shown as dictator, and Glenda as 
speaker of the Boadiceans’ House. No laws 
were passed, because Glenda would not entertain 
any but sensible motions. And Margie went 
beyond the speech she had prepared to add that 
no laws were needed under so just a person as 
Marcia. 

In closing, she said that she stepped back into 
1890, although she could have chosen any age 
in the past or in the future. 

“I saw all the times that have been or shall 
be, the glory that was, and the glory that is to 
come, and I wanted most to come back, and go 
onward as ’90 goes, into the splendid world that 
’90 will make more splendid still.” 

And it was not at all the ending that she had 
prepared. 

Afterward such a round of congratulations 
from everybody to everybody else, then Marcia 
and Sam and the rest of them were off to re- 
hearse in the Auditorium that evening, and Mar- 
gie was left to remember the odds against her. 


376 HEART OF A GIRL 

The chance seemed smaller on Thursday. She 
had not remembered her voice on Class Day, 
but the speech was long, and she had made more 
of an effort to be heard than she knew. She went 
to Dr. Wilkins Thursday morning, and again on 
the morning of Commencement, Friday. 

“We won’t give in yet,” he said. “Go home 
and go to bed. Come down here on your way 
to the Auditorium. Give me twenty minutes, 
and we’ll see. I don’t promise.” 

Margie went home, and to bed. It surprised 
her ever afterward to think that she slept all 
afternoon. If she thought of anything it was 
about Gordonsville and Lena Bean and Belinda 
Betts, the doll. 

When she woke, several pleasant things had 
happened. A box of Cape jasmine had come 
from Cousin Cyrus in Texas. Mother said she 
must wear one in her hair. All the girls were to 
wear flowers in their hair. Walter had sent her 
two dozen La France roses, but the Cape jas- 
mine came from Cousin Cyrus, and Cousin Cyrus 
was a Gordon. Margie laid aside the freshest 
of the jasmine to take to the Auditorium with 
her. Walter should have one, and Harry one, 
too, and the rest could go to any of the class 
who had forgot to bring flowers. There were 
other flowers, too, from classmates, and some 
from Mary Blair, in Greenville, and a little 
sachet bag from the conductor’s daughter, and 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 377 

a beautiful book from another Gordon cousin. 
The dress was perfect, and the slippers the most 
beautiful in the world. 

Mother and father and Betty were to go to 
the Auditorium early, to get good seats. 

“If they can hear me anywhere,” Margie 
thought, “they can hear me everywhere.” 

Dr. Wilkins did something new to her throat. 
Something that made her feel that she had no 
throat at all. 

“Now, don’t open your mouth again till you 
begin to speak,” he said. “We’ll see, and good 
luck to you. I’ll be there.” 

Of course, it was impossible to keep still when 
everybody was chattering and saying how nice 
everybody else looked, in the dressing-room. 
Afterward, when they marched out and took their 
seats in semi-circular rows on the stage, things 
were solemn. Every one of the eight wanted 
the dictionary; four of them meant to do or die. 

The boys looked years older than they had 
done on Class Day. They seemed men, and lead- 
ers of men, in their black coats and their white 
ties. Nobody whispered and nobody giggled. It 
was the most solemn occasion of everybody’s life. 
The Governor and three thousand people were 
out there in front, on the floors, in the gallery, in 
the aisles, packed in till there was scarcely room 
to breathe. The world was waiting for ’90 to 
prove itself. 


HEART OF A GIRL 


378 

Florence Hawley was Salutatorlan. The 
salute shortened her essay. 

“I needn’t be afraid of her,” Margie thought. 
Marcia and Tom and Sam were the only ones 
she did fear, till Mabel Rohlfs began her 
“Square Pegs in Round Holes.” It was so good 
that it started even Tom into looking nervous. 
Nobody had expected it of Mabel. 

Tom followed her. To everybody’s amaze- 
ment, Tom forgot his lines. The prompter 
came to his rescue twice, and Tom had always 
been so cool about things. You could not tell 
whether his speech was good or bad when you 
had to feel that you were pushing to keep him 
along. 

Marcia’s turn came just before Margie. She 
saw that Marcia began to speak too soon. The 
audience applauded each speaker as soon as Mr. 
Harmon called out the name. The house was not 
quite still when Marcia began. She spoke a little 
too fast. But how well she handled the subject ! 

Margie shut her mind to what Marcia was 
saying. 

“I could have done better if I could have come 
before her,” she thought. “After Tom was the 
best time.” 

She looked out into the audience. The people 
in the back of the house were leaning forward. 
A man in the gallery had his hand behind his 
ear. Marcia was not speaking loud enough. 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 379 

“If she had gone two steps farther forward 
it would have been better,” Margie thought. 
She was afraid to think of what Marcia was 
saying. A light reflected from somebody’s eye- 
glasses flashed out in the audience. She won- 
dered if she would be frightened when her turn 
came. Marcia didn’t seem to be. 

The applause after Marcia’s speech was the 
loudest and longest yet. 

“Margaret Holyoke Carlin,” Mr. Harmon 
announced, as it ceased. 

Walter was sitting behind Margie. 

“I’ve bet another box of candy,” he whis- 
pered. “Even this time.” 

Margie walked forward. Knees were trem- 
bling under her, but they didn’t seem to be her 
knees. She had forgotten how her speech began. 
The frog leg part seemed all of it, but still she 
was not frightened. The speech would begin 
after a while. The prompter whispered the line. 
The house thought she was merely waiting for 
utter stillness. She did not hear the prompter. 
She took a step farther forward, and the speech 
began to say itself. 

“Some one has said that every man is the 
architect of his own fortune.” 

Some one near the stage smiled a bored smile. 
It was a trite beginning. Margie meant it to be. 
She could not feel her voice, but the man in the 
gallery sat back and folded his arms. 


HEART OF A GIRL 


380 

It was Margaret who spoke after that. 

“Man is only a builder, not an architect. 
Forces beyond his control draw the plans, and 
Circumstance furnishes the material. Both plans 
and material are beyond the builder’s power to 
choose. It is only in his power to build as best 
he can. Epictetus has it that each one of us 
has his part to play in the world. No man can 
choose his part, but it is his to choose how he 
will play it, well or ill. 

“Magnificent palaces are not built of sticks 
and clay. So, in the world, it happens that men 
fitted for success in one occupation are driven by 
Circumstances to seek another, and so build fail- 
ures. The world is full of such men, men who 
might have been statesmen, philosophers, scien- 
tists, whom Circumstances have made slaves to 
poverty, men forced to toil day after day, year 
after year, for the mere existence of themselves 
and those dependent on them, till the time when 
their abilities could have been developed is gone, 
and what they might have been is forgotten in 
what they are.” 

And then, turning to another cide of the mat- 
ter, she spoke of men fitted for mechanics, who, 
by circumstances of birth, or wealth, take up 
professions and fail. 

“Pettifogging attorneys, dull-witted physi- 
cians, and stupid ministers of the Gospel,” she 
said, 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 381 

“No act is right or wrong, but as Circum- 
stances make it so. There are times when it is 
a duty to break the commandment ‘Thou shalt 
not kill.’ The sheriff who springs the trap of 
the scaffold commits the same act for which the 
murderer dies. It is merely that the circum- 
stance of the motive is different.” 

A little later she said: 

“The circumstance of Mohammed’s epilepsy 
made Oriental millions Moslem. The circum- 
stance of Christian persecution made Christian- 
ity spread, for, as friction generates heat, so per- 
secution develops zeal. The most trivial acci- 
dents have made men famous. The most won- 
derful discoveries have been stumbled on. Gal- 
vani’s fame rests on a few frog legs.” 

The Eugene Aram line was out at last. 

“The pole about which the earth turns is a 
point without dimensions. One move of a chess- 
man has changed a dynasty.” 

And here came the picture. She saw it all 
plainly. 

“In the old days of the Moors in Spain, the 
heir to the throne is defeated by the usurper and 
confined in a castle outside Grenada. The 
usurper on his death-bed sends orders that the 
prince be instantly killed. Captive and jailer 
sit at chess, and the orders are put by unopened 
till the game be finished.” 

[Oh, yes, there they sat over the chessboard, 


HEART OF A GIRL 


382 

and outside the narrow window the plain was 
hot and yellow in the sun.] 

“Fortune smiles on the jailer. His queen 
rides victorious down the board. Bishops, rooks 
and pawns fall before her. Suddenly an unno- 
ticed knight bars her path. The jailer sits puz- 
zling over his next move. Down the dusty road 
from Grenada the Prince sees hurrying horse- 
men.” 

[Oh, yes, they are plain. The straining of 
their horses, the flash of their crimson and blue, 
the gleam of steel. They are riding, riding on 
the dusty road from Grenada.] 

“The queen hesitates.” 

[You can hear the beat of the hoofs.] 

“The jailer’s hand moves from piece to piece.” 
[He has not heard anything, dull, dark, stupid 
man.] 

“The queen makes a false move, and as the 
Prince says ‘Checkmate,’ into the room burst 
panting, dust-covered courtiers. 

“ ‘The King is dead. Long live the King!’ ” 
[And you shout with them. You are one of 
them, dusty, crimson and blue. You fling your 
hand out with them, “Long live the King!”] 
After that it was nothing to feel unconquer- 
able, and Spartan. 

“Every man is his own master. Every act 
he does is of his own accord. No power in the 
world can compel him to do anything he doesmot 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 383 

will to do. All the tortures mediaeval ingenuity 
could devise had no power to wring from the 
martyr’s lips one word of recantation unless he 
first said to himself, ‘I will recant.’ ” 

[Oh, you’d have held out forever. Nothing 
they could do — and you heard chains clanking — 
could make you open your lips.] 

“The master may beat the slave, but he can- 
not alter that slave’s opinion one jot nor tittle. 
This inalienable right to self is the divine right 
of man. Circumstances may mar fortunes, may 
oppose every act and hem in one every side, but 
they have no power to touch the soul, the self. 

“To the soul that has been strengthened by 
adversity, strengthened by suffering, and by de- 
feat spurred on to success, belongs the power to 
rise equal to the gods, and be stronger than the 
strongest force in the universe, the force of Cir- 
cumstances.” 

Margie walked back to her seat. 

The instant the last word was spoken, the last 
thrill of it gone, she remembered everything in 
Marcia’s speech. 

“Marcia quoted Ruskin and Herbert Spen- 
cer,” she thought, and it was the thought that 
took the place of frog legs in her mind. 

And Sam — yes, Sam’s was good, but nobody 
could care much whether politicians practised 
what they preached or not. It was not until he 
began, “And now, to you, teachers of the Cen- 


HEART OF A GIRL 


3^4 

tropolis High School, the Class of ’Ninety bids 
farewell,” that Sam became great. How splen- 
didly he said good-bye. That was true eloquence. 
It was the end, and ’90 felt it. The Governor 
of the State and three thousand people felt it to 
the bottom of their hearts. 

“We go out into the world armed for the 
fray, and unafraid, and we take with us mem- 
ories of four happy years — years of stress and 
turmoil, hard work and hard study, but years of 
good-will and friendship, years that we shall look 
backward to in the days to come with tender re- 
gret. Years that will live in our hearts forever.” 

It was the finest speech ever made in the Eng- 
lish language. 

And why did the band play a cheerful thing? 
Hadn’t the judges retired to chop off heads? 
Margie was past thinking coherently. 

“Marcia quoted Ruskin and Herbert Spen- 
cer,” was the one great fact in the universe. 

She had time to think it ten million times be- 
fore the judges came in. They went out before 
the first chapter of Genesis, and the Millennium 
had come twice before they came back. All the 
while the band played, “and Marcia had quoted 
Ruskin and Herbert Spencer.” 

At the end of ten minutes the judges returned 
to their seats. The President of the Board of 
Education was one of the five that made up the 
committee. 


PALMA NON SINE PULVERE 385 

He was a Torquemada style of man. 

He began by saying that in making their de- 
cision the judges had considered three points: 
literary style, delivery and preparation of sub- 
ject. 

After that he talked for the lifetime of an 
average man on everything on earth. 

Every time you thought he was on the point 
of telling who had won the dictionary, he smiled 
and went off into another long explanation. He 
boiled you in oil till you felt that if he didn’t 
say who won the next time he came near it, you’d 
jump at him and tear him to pieces. Even the 
audience grew tired of the spectacle of torture 
before his fiendish soul was satisfied. When he 
did say the name it came unexpectedly, and 
stopped Margie in the middle of “Marcia 
quoted Ruskin and Spencer.” The name was 
her own. There was no mistake. He said it 
was the unanimous decision of the judges. And 
dismay filled her. How on earth was she going 
to carry the dictionary and the iron stand home 
in the street-car? How on earth was she going 
to do it? 

“I knew you’d win,” Walter said in the roar 
of applause from all the house. “Don’t look so 
dazed. Wake up.” 

Margie woke up. She had won — she had 
won. Her whole life had been one progress of 
magnificent triumphs. Nothing had ever hap- 


HEART OF A GIRL 


386 

pened to her that was not splendid, and this was 
so stupendous and colossal in its splendidness. 

Marcia did not look disappointed, not very 
much so, anyway. She took it quite naturally, 
just as if it were an ordinary thing for people to 
win dictionaries. 

“You deserved it,” she said to Margie, as the 
distribution of diplomas, tied with the class 
colors, went on. “I was scared. Your essay was 
better than mine, anyway. I quoted too much. 
Yours was all your own.” 

“I’m too absolutely happy to say a thing,” 
said Margie. “I want to go home.” 

Mother and Betty had gone on. Father 
waited for her, but Walter said he wanted to go 
home with her. They walked, and they did not 
talk of Margie’s essay nor of the dictionary. It 
stayed at the Auditorium till Walter went after 
it next day. Margie did not want to talk. 

Things seemed a little blank to her. Some- 
thing was lacking. She had won, but Centropo- 
lis was only Centropolis. It was not Gordons- 
ville. The earth beneath her was not the soil 
from which she sprang. It was a splendid world, 
but she wanted to go home. 


[the end.] 



BY JOSEPH C. LINCOLN 


PJRTNERS OF THE TIDE. A Novel. With frontispiece in 
colors by Ch. Weber-Ditzler, and decorations by John Rae. 
i2mo. Cloth. ^1.50. 

Honesty bein’ the best policy, you and me’s out of a job.” 

Cap*n Ezra Tit comb. 

“ Dry Yankee wit, shrewdness, and common sense are 
scattered through the pages.” — The Dial. 

“ Delightful Cape Codders painted with Dutch accuracy and 
plenty of humor.” — N. T. Sun. 

“There is a hearty wholesome quality about this story of the 
life of the Cape Cod folk. The salt breath of the sea blows 
through it, and you can feel the throb and pulse of the tide.” 

— Brooklyn Eagle. 

“ Particularly delightful and delightfully particular are the *old 
maids,* who, as the stage-driver says, ‘come to realize that they 
needed a man ’round the house, but as there warn’t no bids in 
that line, compromised,* and adopted a boy.” 

— Boston Transcript. 

CAP' N ERL A Story of the Coast. Illustrated in colors b}’ 
Ch. Weber-Ditzler. izmo. Cloth. Sixth Ameri- 

can edition. Published also in England, Canada and Australia. 

“Everybody’s friend.” — New York Sun. 

“All the freshness of realism wedded to humor.” 

— New York Mail. 

“A splendid story. Laughter, incident and pathos are 
blended. Expectations are more than realized. Will give the 
author a firm place in the world of contemporary fiction.” 

— Newark Advertiser . 


A. S. BARNES & COMPANY, NEW YORK 




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